J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, dies aged 91

J.D. Salinger, the famously reclusive literary giant whose seminal novel The Catcher in the Rye gave voice to the angst and despair of generations of rebellious adolescents, has died at his US home. He was 91.

Salinger, whose 1951 novel propelled him to instant fame in a world he increasingly shunned, died of natural causes at his New Hampshire home in the small town of Cornish, where he withdrew from public life over 50 years ago.

Attention was already turning to what is believed to be a treasure trove of unpublished short stories and novels that Salinger wrote in the last decades of his life but never published.

In 1999 a New Hampshire neighbour said the author told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books that were kept locked up in a safe in his room.

“I like to write. I love to write. But I just write for myself and my own privacy,” he told The New York Times in a brief telephone interview in 1974.

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Strange guy.

I read his book as a teenager and it really got to me. I'll have to find a copy and see how it reads at 60+.

Catcher in the Rye is a great book that will always be considered a great book, and that is putting it mildly.

Catcher in the Rye is a great book that will always be considered a great book, and that is putting it mildly.

I wonder how many other "one off" books were so well received?

Gone With the Wind is an obvious choice.

If you mean writers that only wrote one great book and the rest were not up to much? I would include One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, From Here to Eternity by James Jones and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. These are some of my tip top favorites by the way.

Excellent books all, but I was thinking of writers who wrote a single book then gave the game away. Mind you it appears I should say published. Salinger appears to have a few hidden away.

Interesting what you say about From Here To Eternity. It's one of the books I've read a number of times and will read again, but "The Thin Red Line", the second of the trilogy has sat half read for six months now.

Salinger also published several volumes of short stories. Are you talking about authors who only published one book of any type? I don't think that there are a lot who only published one great book and nothing else. Even John Kennedy Toole had another book besides a Confederacy of Dunces, but neither one was published during his lifetime.

Catcher in the Rye is a great book that will always be considered a great book, and that is putting it mildly.

Had both daughters read it these past two years. Great book

RIP JD.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is another great book that was written around the same time. Worth a read!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is another great book that was written around the same time. Worth a read!

I was able to teach my girls more about American history with this book than any textbook ever could. One of the best pieces of American literature ever. Though I haven't seen it in probably 25 years, I remeber it being one of the few books adapted to film that still kept its weight.

It is one of the classics and will always remain so. I can see his reasoning and he probably didn't expect the wild success and acclaim of his first novel so perhaps thats why it was published.

Hearing there are unpublished books and stories does pique the curiosity tho, doesn't it? Was it a one off and the rest will be disappointingly banal? Are there undiscovered masterpieces instead? Interesting and I hope we can find out some day.

Well, if his other books are released I'll read them. Absolutely love Catcher!