Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No Laughing Matter | 1986 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
| 2 | Now and Then | 1998 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
Joseph Heller published two non-fiction books. No Laughing Matter (1986), co-written with his friend Speed Vogel, recounts his experience with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare nerve disorder that left him temporarily paralyzed. The book alternates between Heller’s perspective on his illness and Vogel’s account of rallying their circle of friends to support him during recovery.
Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (1998) is a more conventional memoir covering Heller’s childhood in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He writes about growing up in a working-class Jewish family, his World War II service, and the early experiences that would feed into his fiction. Published a year before his death, it reads as a final accounting of the life that produced Catch-22.