J.D. Salinger

For the past 25 years or so I have had four favourite books of which I read one each year without fail. One of these books is J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey (*). This morning, the radio announced that Salinger had died at the very suitable age of 91 (an age we can all aspire to I think).

Of course the main result of this is to ignite speculation about what he has been writing since 1965 and for many of his readers, I'm sure this really concerns what further stories there are of the Glass family. Rumours suggest that he continued to write (that seems fairly clearcut), that some of these did concern the Glass family, and that there was a large collection of manuscripts in a safe, some of which were ready for publication, others needed further editing.

So will there be a whole stack of new Salinger releases, or will they be consigned to the flames. I know I for one would buy a new Salinger release without a moment's hesitation.

* the others are Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard. All broadly buddhist books, all very "juvenile" choices - all containing values that I like to have reaffirmed each year.

This year is, coincidentally, a Franny and Zooey year, to be followed by The Dharma Bums, then the Snow Leopard, then ZAMM which was 2009's read.