Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The majority of the novel takes place in December 1949. The story commences with Holden Caulfield describing encounters he has had with students and faculty of Pencey Prep (scholars often compare Pencey Prep to Valley Forge Military Academy, which Salinger attended from the ages of 15 to 17) in Agerstown, Pennsylvania . He criticizes them for being superficial, as he would say, "phony." After being expelled from the school for his poor academic performance, Holden packs up and leaves the school in the middle of the night after a physical altercation with his roommate. He takes a train to New York but does not want to return to his family and instead checks into the dilapidated Edmont Hotel. There, he spends an evening dancing with three tourist girls and has a clumsy encounter with a young prostitute named Sunny, His attitude toward the prostitute changes the minute she enters the room, because she seems to be about the same age as Holden. Holden becomes uncomfortable with the situation, and when he tells her that all he wants to do is talk, she becomes annoyed with him and leaves. However, he still pays her for her time. Sunny and Maurice, her pimp, later return to Holden's hotel room and demand more money than was originally agreed upon. Despite the fact that Sunny takes five dollars from Holden's wallet, Maurice punches Holden in the stomach......http://www.pinaclebooks.com/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=15668&keyword=the+catcher&searchby=title&offset=0&fs=1

Friday, December 23, 2011

Donald Duck and His Friends

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heoines in American literature.
Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Her story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home--complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy-striper. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is proof that brilliant, emotional storytelling remains at the heart of great fiction.

Four Seasons North

Wright and her husband choose to live in the manner of the Nunamiut Eskimos, inhabiting an isolated cabin they built near the Arctic Circle; this account describes one year of their survival in the wilderness. "Enthralling," PW said, noting "the Wrights's plea for the preservation of the little wilderness we have left is implicit in the record."