'If you really want to hear about it; the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like; and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me; and all that David Copperfield kind of crap; but I don't feel like going into it; if you want to know the truth.' The first of J. D. Salinger's four books to be published; The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most widely read and beloved of all contemporary American novels. 'The handbook of the adolescent heart' The New Yorker