{"id":3455,"date":"2025-09-05T09:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T09:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/3455\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T09:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T09:41:08","slug":"rumaan-alam-reading-jd-salinger-now-is-like-running-into-that-particular-ex-at-a-cafe-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/3455\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumaan Alam: \u2018Reading JD Salinger now is like running into that particular ex at a cafe\u2019 | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

My earliest reading\u00a0memory
I recall lying in the bath,\u00a0age seven or eight, reading the final page of\u00a0Judy Blume\u2019s Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself, then turning to the novel\u2019s opening and beginning again. Memory is untrustworthy, but Blume is a genius who has that effect on her reader.<\/p>\n

My favourite book\u00a0growing up
We\u2019re always growing up; we\u2019re always choosing a new favourite. For me, once,\u00a0this was Louise Fitzhugh\u2019s Harriet the Spy. Later I\u2019d have said JD Salinger\u2019s Nine Stories. Later, still, John Cheever\u2019s Collected Stories, Lorrie Moore\u2019s Self-Help, Thomas Mann\u2019s The Magic Mountain, my favourite changing as I did. Maybe\u00a0I\u2019m finally old enough to understand that favourite is impossible to designate. Or maybe I\u2019d say my current favourite is Don DeLillo<\/a>\u2019s Underworld.<\/p>\n

The book that changed me as a teenager
I encountered Salinger at 13. I began with The Catcher in the Rye (as most do) and read through his (too small) oeuvre. I wrote bad stories ripping him off; he somehow made me believe that I could be a\u00a0writer, too.<\/p>\n

The writer who changed\u00a0my mind
I think reading William Faulkner <\/a>\u2013 I\u2019d have been 16 or so \u2013 was the first time I understood that the pleasure one finds in a book might not be in its ease. I think that\u2019s what I most loved (and still value!) about the\u00a0favourites of my childhood: being swept up in story and character and action. Faulkner showed me that there could be delight in wrestling with a sentence, a pure joy in language itself, a thrill in being challenged and confused by a work of art.<\/p>\n

The author that made me\u00a0want to be a writer
My early writing education was just mimicry. And the first writer I remember imitating was Agatha Christie. How I wanted to write a perfect whodunit, with a stately\u00a0home, a party of interesting people and a dead body. That\u2019s easier said than done.<\/p>\n

The authors I\u00a0come back to
There\u2019s no shortage of\u00a0these \u2013 Don DeLillo, Anita Brookner, Patrick Modiano, Philip Roth, Willa Cather. These are but a few of the writers I can go back to and be thrilled by whenever I need.<\/p>\n

The books I could never\u00a0read again
My relationship with Salinger was like a heated youthful romance. Reading his fiction now is a bit like running into that particular ex at a cafe. I\u2019d rather remember Salinger\u2019s work as meaningful to my 14-year-old self than actually read it as I\u00a0tiptoe toward 50.<\/p>\n

The book I discovered later in life
I\u2019m all for discovery whenever it happens. Books have no sell-by date. They\u2019re always there, waiting for their readers, and it\u2019s silly to carry around a sense of embarrassment for not having got to Moby-Dick or what have you. This summer I read Gustave Flaubert\u2019s Madame Bovary for the first time. A perfect novel! Why did I wait so long? It doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

The book I am currently\u00a0reading
Gertrude\u00a0Stein\u2019s The Autobiography of Alice B\u00a0Toklas. My first time with Stein, and I\u2019m reading it slowly while lying on the beach; a\u00a0luxury, a joy.<\/p>\n

My comfort read
Comfort can be different things. In times of stress, I\u00a0might want something funny, or I might want something that mirrors the tumult I\u2019m feeling in life. The comfort derives, in large part, from knowing that it\u2019s new, that I\u2019m in search of something, that I might discover something other than what I\u2019m looking for. That\u2019s what I\u00a0love about books \u2013 a journey without a map.<\/p>\n

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam is out in paperback (Bloomsbury) on 11\u00a0September. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My earliest reading\u00a0memoryI recall lying in the bath,\u00a0age seven or eight, reading the final page of\u00a0Judy Blume\u2019s Starring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-3455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}