Yossarian wants to get out of flying war combat missions by being crazy, but is caught by Catch 22: the rule that said if he knew he was crazy, then he wasn't.

"Vasily Grossman's three war novels are recognizably the work of the same writer; all display his sharp psychological insights and his gift for descriptive passages that appeal to all our different senses. Nevertheless, the goals he set himself in these novels are very different. Life and Fate is not only a novel but also a work of moral and political philosophy, focusing on the question of whether or not it is possible for someone to behave ethically...

Sent into hiding during World War II, headstrong seventeen-year-old Princess Charlotte assumes an alias and enjoys the freedoms of a normal life in Yorkshire before her ill-fated romance with her guardians' son leads to the orphaning of a royal infant.

During the winter of 1944, three soldiers are sent on a reconnaissance mission up a mountain in Italy, near Mount Cassino, lead by seventy-year-old Angelo, an Italian of indeterminate loyalty, and are confronted by the terror, confusion, and hardship of their mission.