The List (Part Six)

And now, The Catcher in the Rye.  I wonder about this choice.  Too many of its readers have become, or already were, a little out-of-centre (eg. Mark David Chapman, Winona Ryder).  My nephew now has my copy, but only because of a visit by my family and a half-serious request for books to read (again, it never ends).  I kept in mind how long it has remained a go-to book for teenage angst; how certain writers praised it ("Best thing I read in ages" - Samuel Beckett); and how it spoke to me.  I had to include one example of teenage life that I recognized on this list and there has never been a better example than Salinger's work.