…and last night I finished Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salermo (2013 – a classic) It really is quite good – I was reading and re-reading about every other section – little section made up of quotes by people Shields and Salermo interviewed. These were sometimes a few sentences long, other times several or more pages and include a really wide selection of people in addition to some quotes from various written material. I was entranced. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/who-was-j-d-salinger

I think of J. D. Salinger as a very sensitive, talented and somewhat angry and narcissistic writer who got badly injured in his mid-20s, during the battles of WWII. After The Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey were published he had to quit writing for awhile due to what is now called severe PTSD. During his non-writing (or just non-publishing?) days he became very religious and addicted, in a way, to that; he pushed the thoughts of the war (and his fame) away with his religion (and young women).

I’d give it a 9.5 – And I think that’s a great way to re-start my blog.