My favorite catch? 22 of course!

Here's an article about a new book that explores the strange circumstances that led to some of literatures most noted titles. It's not the stories, but the titles that this book tries to explain. For instance, why is it Catch-22 instead of Catch-18 (Heller's original choice)?

Well it turns out Leon Uris released Mila 18 shortly before Catch-18 was to debut, so they had to come up with a new number. So how'd they get 22?

A long process of numerical agonising began in which the author and his editor at Simon & Schuster, Robert Gottlieb, worked their way through the integers looking for the right formula. 'Catch-11' was one of the first suggestions, but was rejected because of the 1960 Rat Pack film Ocean's Eleven. Heller at one point settled firmly on 'Catch-14', but Gottlieb threw it out for being too nondescript. When 22 came up, Gottlieb felt that it had the right ring: 'I thought 22 was a funnier number than 14,' he told the New York Times Review of Books in 1967. Heller took two weeks to be persuaded.

"I thought 22 was a funnier number than 14." I love that line. And you know what? He was right; 22 IS a funnier number!

The article goes on to explain a title that's always puzzled me (The Postman Always Rings Twice) and how Jeeves became Jeeves. I'm undecided, but here's a link to the book.