Still Searching for JD Salinger

Remembering the writer, not the myth

(NEWSER) - The myth of JD Salinger the withdrawn man doesn't match Salinger the writer, Adam Gopnik writes. On the page, Salinger was charming, expansive, and relentlessly engaged with the world. "No American writer will ever have a more alert ear, a more attentive eye, or a more ardent heart," Gopnik writes in the New Yorker . "A self-enclosed writer doesn’t listen, and Salinger was a peerless listener: page after page of pure talk flowed out of him, moving and true and, above all, funny." More»

Author rumored to have kept stash of unpublished works

(NEWSER) - Fans who have long awaited Holden Caulfield's move from adolescence to retirement hope they'll soon be reading something new from JD Salinger. The author—whose last published book was in 1963—is widely believed to have kept a stack of finished, unpublished works in a safe in his New Hampshire home, AP reports. More»

Novel about Holden Caulfield can't be published in US

(NEWSER) - Another court triumph for JD Salinger: A federal judge has blocked the US publication of an unauthorized sequel to The Catcher in the Rye. The judge, who had issued a temporary restraining order last month, issued a more permanent injunction against the novel by Swedish author Fredrik Colting, reports the New York Times. It had been scheduled to come out this summer. Colting can still take the case to trial, but the judge said Salinger would likely prevail. More»

Salinger standby should make way for newer books

(NEWSER) - JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye may have once been edgy, coming-of-age literature, but does it deserve a place in today's curricula? It's time to retire Holden Caulfield, argues Anne Trubek in Good magazine. "Salinger’s novel lacks the currency or shock value it once had," she says. "But it is still ubiquitously taught even though many newer novels of adolescence are available." More»

From Hunter to Ayn, the Telegraph lists books you can 'wear like a leather jacket'

(NEWSER) - It’s hard to define the "cult" book, but the Telegraph compiled 50 of the top contenders that “rewire your head.”

• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1968)
• Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922)
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)