J.D. Salinger made an appearance on BoJack Horseman. He was working in a tandem bike shop.
Tag Archives: J.D. Salinger
The Top Ten Books [I had Time to Read] This Year
Foreground: Baby. Background: Books.
I became a parent in the Spring of 2014. Which is a wonderful thing, but it means that I spent my severely reduced reading time with books like The Happiest Baby on the Block Guide to Great Sleep (useful, but a pretty excruciating read); Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads (useful, and an enjoyable read); and The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree (still a classic).
I did manage to pull off one half-assed review about a book I hadn’t finished reading, but for the most part my 2014 was spent dreaming of all the cool looking books I had no time to enjoy. Needless to say, this has left me woefully underqualified to make any kinds of judgments, even subjective ones, about the Best Books of the last 12 months.
And yet, I remain undeterred — what is the end of a year without a list of things? And while I may not have a top 10, I’m sure I can come up with something that fits our habit of doing odd and unorthodox year-end lists.
So here is my list of Top Ten Books [I had Time to Read] This Year. Continue reading
Filed under Hooray Fiction!
The Glass Family Tragically Loses Another Sibling: Google
Google Glass is doomed, according to reports from Silicon Valley.
It joins a long line of Glass family siblings who, having been scarred by high expectations and public cruelty, are forced to retreat into their own failure and depression.
“The future of technology.” — David Pogue, The New York Times, September 2012
“I’m not afraid to compete. It’s just the opposite. Don’t you see that? I’m afraid I will compete — that’s what scares me.” — Franny and Zooey and Google
“I don’t know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn’t make you happy.” — Franny and Zooey and Google
“I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.” — Franny and Zooey and Google
J.D. Salinger’s fans still hold out hope that he is working on a new manuscript about the only remaining Glass sibling who has not met a tragic end: Ira.
- Brian Hurley
Filed under Hooray Fiction!
America’s Ten Favorite Books are Better Than You Expected
Among the embarrassing surveys of how few Americans can find Ukraine on a map and/or the dismal polls of people who believe the Senate should be controlled by Republicans, this week saw the release of a cultural indicator that actually bears good news.
Tuesday, Harris Interactive published the results of a poll asking Americans which books they love most. The survey — which last ran in 2008 — revealed that The Bible, by God, was America’s favorite. No surprises there, as other studies have clearly shown that Americans largely identify as Christian. The good book maintained the #1 spot it held in 2008, while Gone With the Wind also kept its ranking, coming in again at #2. The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter collections (each counted as one book, which is not altogether sporting, if you ask me) traded positions in the #3 and #4 spots, with Potter taking higher honors this year. Other books that appeared on the 2008 list did not fare as well — which is actually the best part. A number of blockbuster novels on the previous list were replaced by a handful of American classics.
Perhaps most interesting is the way the changes from ’08 to now sync up oddly well with the typical evolution of many American readers.
In 2008 we read like eager young adolescents, just starting to take on “big” books (as in 300+ pages, ostensibly written for adults) and devouring anything that caught our interest. This explains our 2008 affinity for Stephen King’s The Stand (#5); the Dan Brown books (Da Vinci Code #6 and Angels and Demons #8); and of course, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a hallmark of enthusiastic youngsters and Congressional staffers discovering the nascent thrill of thinking that they are thinking for themselves.
In 2014, we stepped up our game. We are now reading like older, slightly more sophisticated adolescents. The Stand has been displaced by To Kill a Mockingbird in the #5 spot, followed by #6 Moby Dick, #7 The Catcher in the Rye, #8 Little Women, #9 The Grapes of Wrath and #10 The Great Gatsby.
This trend indicates that, in the last six years, our nation must have felt the influence of a really important English or Drama teacher, someone who helped us figure out a lot of stuff we were going through recently and who we’re never going to forget. If the trend holds, we should all be getting into experimental fiction and Annie Dillard by 2020.
Whatever the case may be, we should all just be happy that Atlas Shrugged has fallen off the list. For those of you who think that’s bad, well, the last poll was taken in 2008. You know whose fault this is:
- Michael Moats
Filed under Hooray Fiction!
Technology is Making Poetry Awesome Again
Despite what Wattpad is doing to the novel, a new program called RapPad has given everyone an excuse to read poetry.
RapPad was designed to help aspiring rappers write the hottest computer generated rhymes. Over at Mental Floss, linguist Arika Okrent recently used the “Generate Line” function to combine famous opening lines with existing rap lyrics. For example: Continue reading
Filed under Hooray Fiction!
Books that Mattered in 2013: The Catcher in the Rye
In 2013, J.D. Salinger was the subject of Salinger, a much anticipated biography written by Shane Salerno and David Shields after a decade of research and extensive interviews. The book, along with a concurrently released documentary, was marketed with a slow-trickle of revealed “secrets,” including never-before-seen photos of the author, a dramatic theatrical trailer, and a legitimately exciting announcement about the works that are planned for publication in the years to come. Hopes were high. Unfortunately, when the biography arrived, it was clear that it was terrible. Same for the movie.
For that reason, we are returning to the source, the real reason any of this is happening at all. Salinger the book might have mattered briefly in 2013, but Salinger the author has mattered since 1951, when his debut novel The Catcher in the Rye started something that still has us talking 62 years later.
Filed under Books that Mattered in 2013
If There’s One Thing I Hate, It’s the Movies
More Salinger news from Time Online:
Less-than-stellar reviews of the recent documentary exploring the life of The Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger haven’t stopped Harvey Weinstein from plans to turn it into a scripted feature-length film.
The movie will be written by Shane Salerno, the man behind the current documentary and book. Regarding that:
Penning an entirely new Salinger movie, while already well researched, isn’t the only thing going on for the former Armageddon writer. Even while promoting his documentary and book of the same name, Salerno has continued work on one of the three Avatar sequels.
Let’s just hope Salerno’s depiction of Salinger’s postwar struggles is more nuanced than his previous portrayal of mental health challenges:
Previous Salinger coverage here, here, and here.
- Michael Moats
Jerry, Rigged
Salinger by Shane Salerno and David Shields is not so much a biography of J.D. Salinger as it is an assortment of press clips and interview excerpts about Salinger. None of the pieces are properly dated or sourced in the main text, aside from the name of the person speaking or writing, so fifty-year-old articles are lined up next to commentary from academics and the thoughts of the actor Edward Norton. Somewhere in between are words from people who actually knew Salinger. In the book’s 500-plus pages, the “authors” contribute maybe 50 pages of text.
The result is something like a J.D. Salinger Facebook news feed. This is not optimal, but it’s not the biggest problem with Salinger.
The biggest problem is that on a subject where nuance and understanding are required, Salinger is sloppy and lazy. Its flood of information ends up being a mile wide and an inch deep. Even when presenting new details that are valuable and intriguing, Salinger manages to tell a story that is less than the sum of its parts. Then there is David Shields, who I will deal with in a moment. But for these reasons and more, this is about to get ugly. Continue reading
Filed under Hooray Fiction!, The Real Holden Caulfield
