The Catcher in the Rye

four of those

my top four books um first of all i'd probably say convenience store woman by saika marata which is a book about a woman whose only dream in life is to work in a convenience store and all of marata's work is kind of about like women who feel very out of place from the expectations of society and i just love everything that she writes about um second book probably Artemis Fowl by Owen Colfer that was my childhood favourite book series about a very very morally grey slash villainous uh child genius who decides to steal a bunch of fairy gold um but I think I fell in love with like Artemis Fowl's emotional journey over the series and how he he learns to make friends and like love other people and yeah it's it's just very fun Number three I would say Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

That was one that I read probably at the age of like 16 and kind of made me want to write my first book Solitaire because of the voice of the narrator and how much Holden Caulfield is kind of concealing from the reader and how dynamic his voice is in that book.

And then a fourth What's my number four?

One of the things you'll hear people say is they'll go, oh, these aren't banned books.

These are some of the most famous well-read books in history, right? Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 441, 1984.

Yes, it is laughable.

how many classic books have been on banned book lists over the years.

The last time we were there, um, but going the opposite direction, 1953, we're just talking about an inflection point because see coming down from the we in, um, 53, because remember, coming down from the way, and 63 started the me.

63 starts the me, which is, but you know who the alpha voices were? That was the year that we got Catcher in the Rye from J.D.

Salinger.

That was also the year that Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road.

1953.

And so all of a sudden, all these signals were coming up on that again in 2033.

I don't know what the signals will be, but the alpha voices in literature, Playboy magazine, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Jack Kerouac's On the Road, bam, alpha voices.

And then you start hearing it in the music.

But I immediately had a deep, loving, emotional connection with this character and decided that he is my book boyfriend forever and ever.

And that is Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye.

And that is going smack bam in the cake.

Holden Caulfield.

Here are the finalists.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Motar and Max Gladstone, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

Go vote.

Secondly, we won a couple of awards.