Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters; Seymour - an Introduction

An extract from A Perfect Day for Bananafish, the first story from the collection of nine exceptional short stories from J. D. Salinger. 'She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.'

Most of us have heard of The Catcher in the Rye, but did you know J. D. Salinger only had four books published in his lifetime? For those who loved Catcher and want more, or for those who haven't yet picked up one of his books, find your essential Salinger read below in celebration of his 100th anniversary.

A novel in two intertwining stories, Franny & Zooey brilliantly captures the emotional strains and ruptures of entering adulthood. 'Lane Coutell, in a Burberry raincoat that apparently had a wool liner buttoned into it, was one of the six or seven boys out on the open platform. Or rather, he was and he wasn’t one of them.'