[ book tip by Hannah Geismar ] The Catcher In The Rye is the teen-angst novel of all times, which is why it belongs in all libraries on the globe, public or private - and even if you only have one silly little bookshelf at home, it should still be on it. The idea of a great classic might make you yawn, but the moment you open the book and get to know Holden Caulfield, you will definitely stop yawning, because you're in for a wild ride.

The Catcher In The Rye is the perfect book for those times when you just want to run and run... and when you’ve run for a while and you're too out of breath to continue, you just go on running... and when you’re finally so exhausted that you can't move your feet, a desperate sound comes out of your throat and you run some more... because you simply have to run... and you’re not sure whether you’re running from something or to something, maybe you're just running because you CAN run... all you know is that you're running, and in certain moments you think you can continue to run forever...

But then Love suddenly stops you... and you don’t know if its love you feel for someone else, or love someone else feels for you... maybe its just a big cloud of universal love out there, somewhere, that suddenly puts its foot down right in front of you so that you trip and fall... and when you come to your senses again, you realize that you're lying on the ground and you have no idea how long you've been lying there... could be seconds, could be hours... your head is spinning and you’re not sure what just happened... and when you think about it, you're even less sure what happened before what just happened... but most of all: you don't know if its a defeat or a victory that you stopped running, and you probably never will...

Available in French as L'attrape-coeurs, Editions Pocket, 2005

[ book info ] Salinger, J-D: The Catcher In The Rye. Penguin Books Ltd, 1994 .