Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - This is the book that catapulted everyone - for better or worse - into the 1960s with its surrealistic take on warfare, survival, love, death, heroism, probability, contingency, coping strategies, bureaucracies, doltish generals, doubting parsons, dying pilots, and vengeful "furies" - full of comical, Alice-in-Wonderlandesque, "looking glass logic" and the adamant rantings of the irrepressible Yossarian - a man who in the midst of all moralistic bromides to the contrary - defends his "me first" philosophy of self-preservation at all costs.