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dead

Yeah. that's how the news entered my inbox this morning - "dead" in the subject line. At 91 years, the legend J.D. Salinger has died.

Recently I pledged to read the printed word - you know, good ol' fashioned books and such. Meg announced it and, like many things that Meg announces, I found myself instantly connected to the idea of detaching myself from the screen and digesting the paper. I love books. Our house is full of them. So full in fact that recently we had to reorganize the bookshelves - a project which, once taken on, is completely absorbing and hard to complete. I suddenly find myself drawn into the books I've read and loved, read and hated, and bought and haven't read yet. So, amid this project, I settled on reading J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey. It was a beat-up paperback that I thought I'd read and discard (we were weeding out books too - my dining room table has been covered in stacks of books to give away or sell (since the merge we've doubled up on a few books) ever since). Ha. I found myself totally enraptured with this thin little story. Of course, that's not the book he's famous for - that book would be Catcher in the Rye - a book which (gasp!) I've still never read. Despite being an English major, I skipped over most of the books everyone reads between the ages of 10 and 20. I'm still gradually going back to them. Anyway. J.D. Salinger is gone, but his books are still here to read and love.

If in fact you love books as much as the two lovely ladies, CEVD and ESB, that produced it, go to Read the Printed Word and take the pledge. Long live the printed word!

Comments

  1. Franny and Zooey is so fantastic... My good friend in college was madly in love with Franny, and I have to admit that she was my favorite too. I'm a little afraid to reread The Catcher in the Rye, since everyone that used to like it as a kid seems to "see right through it" as an adult, and I'm just not quite ready for that. I always liked Holden.

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