Not the TV Book Group – loving this.
Dovegreyreader’s explanation of what it is and how it works.
and from Savidge Reads.
more reading, more blogging about reading, more talking about reading, more reading about reading. as a reader long before I became a writer, it all works for me.
Quick run in to Bush House for the World Service’s lovely international arts programme The Strand to talk about Salinger, refute those who dismiss the work as appealing only to youth, point out that For Esme With Love and Squalor could easily be about any soldier back from Iraq or Afghanistan with PTSD, and promote Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenters (again?!) as a pretty damn perfect short story.
So, he’s dead. Leave him alone now. Let the work speak for itself.
Not Writing But Blogging 
Particularly liked your defence of Holden Caulfield as an unreliable narrator (although it was really odd that needed to be pointed out). I seem to remember moments when cracks show and even he almost admits how off he is, but it’s over twenty years… should reread along with the rest…. especially Esme as I wouldn’t have gotten much of it thirty years ago….
Luckily my English teacher didn’t ruin Catcher for us, but had us write a piece in his voice, a real gift for the teenage ego (which, in memoriam, I’ve posted to my blog).
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Thank you for pointing out the BBC that Salinger did write something other than Catcher in the Rye!
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writing is the good hobby but blogging is the career .. cheers..keep it up
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thank you all! yes, I do find the Holden-centric obits a bit depressing.
as for blogging as a CAREER!!?? eek!
x
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Why am I surprised that you like Salinger – a lot of Salinger, seemingly? Haven’t read him since I was in kneepants (whatever they are/were) and can’t remember anything at all about any of them, save that they were short. But hey! I’ve just started reading a 500 page or so book in which one of the main characters is a dog!
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short’s good!
and I just think we were badly led by being given him to read when we were all too young. I reckon you, of all people John, would totally approve of Raise High … A neat, sharp, short story. What’s not to like?
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OK, when I’ve finished pleasantly labouring through all 562 pages of David Wroblewski’s “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle’ [‘Hamlet’ with dogs!] I’ll give it a try.
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dad is murdered, son dithers, son kills other people. (an entire play NOT ‘about conflict’, eng lit teachers, but about the resolution of conflict.)
where do the dogs fit in?
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Well, one of them, Almondine, seems to be Ophelia.
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a herbalist who steers clear of swimming pools?
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