JD Salinger R.I.P

I haven't really got anything useful to add to the mass of material on Salinger that has appeared in the papers and online in the last couple of days, and I guess 91 is a good age to go at. I read The Catcher In The Rye when I was 19 and loved it with a passion, and re-read it a few times in the next four or five years, but I haven't touched it since. That's quite unusual for me with a favourite book, and I think it's because deep down I'm worried that it'll turn out to be something you only love when you're that age.

I've read and re-read most of his other stuff though. The short story collection, For Esme, With Love And Squalor, is probably my favourite, especially The Laughing Man, with its story-within-a-story.

Salinger's death does raise all sorts of questions about what happens when a writer genuinely does write purely for themselves. It'll be interesting to see if they're answered if anything is now published posthumously.