Reviews for Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye': A Reader's Guide

The average rating for Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye': A Reader's Guide based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-08-23 00:00:00 Shane Boyer A book that covers all the aspects of Mysteries, Crime, Noir, Suspense, etc that this one hopes to survey--- must either be very long, or a beginners guide, if as brief and slender as this one. There is the perfunctory mention of the usual suspects, Christie, Conan-Doyle, Chandler, et al, but there is hardly any depth to speak of. There are even mentions of not-so-well-known original movers like Erskine Childers, and Wilkie Collins, although without individual book entries. Funny thing. Funnier thing, though, is that most of the volume here is taken up enormously ---maybe 80% or more--- by entries of post-1999 fiction. You shouldn't have to approach your Guide To Crime Fiction like a criminologist, but here's the case : If, as a novice, you had only this guide to go with, you would think that the current crop of mystery novels outranks and outpaces the classics, and by a large margin. Which doesn't happen to be the case. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you had to honestly list all the worldclass crime classics from '99 onwards, you might have a very short list. What happens to be the case for all these instant classics -- you know, from 1999, 2002, 2005, etc-- is that there are interested parties who hold financial stakes in their well-being and evolution. And in this Rough Guide, these current titles are duly noted, admired, placed high on the pillar. However. Fantastic out-of-print or public-domain titles that are from the way-distant past, --you know, before the nineties--- get roughly zero recognition here, and I'm afraid the accusing finger must be pointed to the fact that they have no publisher or publicity department priming the pump. The pump, that is, that obviously sacrifices accuracy and validity for the hype & misdirection of the "Rough Guide To Crime Fiction". Almost criminal. This one was just on the verge of being categorized as 'dumpster', but the saving grace of it's espionage / spy fiction chapter pushed it over the line. Which managed to hit on the prime authors fairly well for a short chapter. Anyway, if you can dutifully ignore the cheerful puffery here about all the numerous post-1999 masterpieces, the remaining material, on the actual classics would be helpful to the beginner. What would be more helpful to the beginner is removing all those current-day emulators from the company of the true giants of the genre. Browse this with blinders on.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-11-24 00:00:00 Noel Teacher The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction is a fantastic way of deciding where you are going to start reading in the wide world of crime fiction. I considered myself well read in crime, with an already large personal crime library, but once I read this little book I realised how much I was missing. As I read through this guide, I made a list of all the authors I wanted to investigate. This is how I discovered 1930′s Margery Allingham, GK Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. It also supported opinions of my friends on Carl Hiassen and George Pelecanos. Next to read for me is Peter Temple's The Broken Shore and Georges Simenon The Man Who Watched Trains Go By. On the subject of Mr Simenon, the French crime writer, The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction introduces him in a brief bio this way: "Georges Simenon wrote that he'd slept with over 10,000 women - and while one may be sceptical of this rather boastful (or careless) claim, it's fortunate for the world of crime fiction that he found time to write one of the greatest bodies of work in the genre anywhere in the world." And here I am struggling to finish a short story. I dunno.