Bookshelf · Classic LitPreview

Holden Caulfield.

The Catcher in the Rye · 1951

Phonies on every shelf, but a few authors get a pass. Holden actually reads — Fitzgerald, Hardy, Isak Dinesen — between the cigarettes and the contempt.

"What really knocks me out is a book that…"

3 booksCurated · cited · cross-referenced

The shelf, decoded

Why this list.

Holden Caulfield names exactly the books he likes, and we should believe him. The list below is what he actually praises in the novel.

The reading list

3 books for Holden.

No. 01On screen
Out of Africa
Isak Dinesen
Holden specifically singles out Dinesen as a writer he wishes were a friend.
CitationNovel, Chapter 3
No. 02On screen
Of Human Bondage
W. Somerset Maugham
Read recently before the events of the novel. Liked, but not loved.
CitationNovel, Chapter 3
No. 03On screen
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy
Hardy’s Eustacia Vye gets one of Holden’s rare unironic compliments.
CitationNovel, Chapter 3

Closing note

It’ll knock you out. Or it won’t. He’s fine either way.

Jay Gatsby

Cover of Stoddard’s Lectures by John L. Stoddard

Cover of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Cover of This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A library full of uncut pages. Gatsby owns the books he was never given the time — or class — to read. The list is a story of longing.

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Pride and PrejudiceSoon

Elizabeth Bennet

Cover of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Cover of Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women by James Fordyce

The original quick-witted reader. Lizzie’s library: novels her mother disapproves of, conduct manuals she ignores, and the letters that change everything.

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The Bell JarSoon