Pick up this book and start reading a story, any story. Choose from intriguing titles like “A Perfect Day for Banana fish” or “For Esme – With Love and Squalor,” and start anywhere. Chances Are that you will be in on a conversation, one so fresh and immediate that you will seem to be hearing, not reading it. You have entered the world of J. D. Salinger, and you will continue reading until you have finished all nine stories. Who are these extraordinary people, these grave and knowing children, what is happening to them, what are they revealing about past events, about themselves, about their dealings with each other and the world? The author does not tell you directly but you find out for yourself from their every work, gesture, and act.

When you have finished, you will understand why Arthur Mizener recently called Salinger “probably the most avidly read author of any serious pretensions in his generation,” and his work “the most interesting fiction that has come along for some time.”