Storyline Book Club: The Classics Book Club

Join us for a discussion of Catcher in the Rye & Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger.

About the books:

Cather in the Rye:

The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature—and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books.

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days, grappling with feelings of loneliness, grief, and alienation. His search for something genuine in a world that feels insincere and superficial remains urgent and unmistakably modern.

In Holden's comic, cutting, and painfully sincere voice, readers discover a comradeship and understanding as they recognize the ache of being lost, and the impulse toward rebellion that comes with the passage into adulthood. The Catcher in the Rye resonates deeply and personally for every new reader.

Nine Stories:

The "original, first-rate, serious, and beautiful" short fiction (New York Times Book Review) that introduced J. D. Salinger to American readers in the years after World War II, including "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and the first appearance of Salinger's fictional Glass family.

Nine exceptional stories from one of the great literary voices of the twentieth century. Witty, urbane, and frequently affecting, Nine Stories sits alongside Salinger's very best work--a treasure that will passed down for many generations to come. The stories:

• A Perfect Day for Bananafish
• Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut
• Just Before the War with the Eskimos
• The Laughing Man
• Down at the Dinghy
• For Esmé--with Love and Squalor
• Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes
• De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period
• Teddy

About the author:

J. D. Salinger was born in New York City on January 1, 1919, and died in Cornish, New Hampshire, on January 27, 2010. His stories appeared in many magazines, most notably The New Yorker. Between 1951 and 1963 he produced four book-length works of fiction: The Catcher in the Rye; Nine Stories; Franny and Zooey; and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour--An Introduction. The books have been embraced and celebrated throughout the world and have been credited with instilling in many a lifelong love of reading.