Sept Classic: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

I will grab a table before the start time (feel free to get us one if you're there first).

This was the first book ever assigned when I began high school. I was much different back then, so I barely skimmed it and don't remember anything.

Here's the synopsis:

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

*The Catcher in the Rye* is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.