I think Catcher in the Rye is definitely one that is better if you read it at the right time in your life. Personally, I never quite got the appeal of On the Road.

Nancy Drew?
Actually, for me, it was To Kill A Mockingbird. It set a tone for me for the rest of my life.

For me, it was Dr. Fegg’s Nasty Book of Knowledge. A deliferate mistale!
.

One story that did blow my mind and changed my perspective was Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House”. The story was “Harrison Bergeron”.

I see Diana Moon Glampers in many liberals. Well extremist liberals that is.

Catcher In The Rye and Animal Farm really spoke to me as a 10 year old, but none had the affect on me like Stranger In A Strange Land. I totally related to the alien.
Catcher In the Rye was very relatable, too.

Maybe I read Catcher in the Rye too late, too, because I certainly didn’t see anything earth-shaking in it. In fact, I didn’t think it was a very good novel, period. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t identify with Holden Caufield.

As a teenager and rabid Beatles fan, I refused to read Catcher because that’s what inspired Mark David Chapman. Lo these many years later, I still haven’t, though not for the same reason–from all I’ve heard, as you said, it does need to be read during that period of teenage angst.

After I watched “Forrest Gump” as a movie and found it an interesting concept but a little too Robert-Zemeckis-y for my taste, I decided that reading the book would be fun since books are usually better than the movie adaptions of them, right?

Well, usually. I found the book incredibly disappointing and couldn’t understand how anyone got the movie out of it — because even if the movie wasn’t great, it was still better than the book.

I bet re-reading it would still be as good if you read it at the right moment earlier on.

I think I read it at the right moment - I guess. I mean what did a spoiled brat in Manhattan have to do with a girl in rural TN in the 80s? But somehow it still resonated.

When I was teaching English, I taught CITR twice. Once to 8th graders, once to seniors.

The 8th graders thought Holden Caufield was the coolest guy that ever lived. The seniors thought he was an annoying whiny twit.

Kate, agreed. Forrest Gump is one of the very few movies based on a book that I consider to be better than the book itself.

Hollyw-
If I hadn’t read ‘Catcher in the Rye’ prior to Dec 8, 1980, I’m not sure I would have read it either.

I loves the Gospels according to John and Paul, (that’s John Lennon and Paul McCartney) but the killer was psychotic and the book was collateral damage that night.

If you are not quite one of the gang…if you think outside the box, Catcher is a book you might enjoy if you can get past the killer reading it after he shot John.

i read all of ayn rand as a teenager and worshiped her. the books didn’t ring as ideal to me as an adult. objectivism is not all it’s cracked up to be… also i was a big carlos castaneda fan if yoy get my frift. i’m way too old for that now… but at 15 i was enthralled and overly experimental…

nice typo’s in the above post
“get my drift…”
(sorry)

I never read Catcher. But I’d have to list way too many books for a comment to include them all: To Kill a Mockingbird, Stranger in a Strange Land, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fountainhead, and on and on.

Atlas Shrugged for me…

then, a non fiction book called “Mere Discipleship” by a prof at Lipscomb, Dr Lee Camp.

After reading a book about radical individualism that changed my perception of things, and then a book about radical living for Christ, I am one screwed up person.