“What’s your favorite book?” is a stupid question. “Really, it’s not about books at all, it’s about distinguishing yourself through your distinctions, choosing a work that gives the fullest picture of the person you’d like the world to consider you to be. That’s why everyone always says Catch-22 – not because they think Heller to be easily as good as Roth, Mailer, Updike and Vonnegut rolled into one. No one thinks that. It’s because of the myriad excellent messages enjoyment of this book gives off – I have a fine sense of humour; I’m anti-war and probably broadly leftwing; I have a healthy, questioning disrespect for authority; I like a bit of nooky, but not in a mean way, not like that Rabbit or that Zuckerman; and I’m highly intelligent, but I won’t get all in your face about it. You probably want to go out with me, it says, and you’re dead right.”