Quote Originally Posted by noel View Post
Thanks. Mrs Noel got this for Christmas - I'm looking forward to reading it.

I'm working my way through the classics currently (and a few non-classics), as a distraction before hopefully returning to running at some point in the spring.

Catcher in the rye. I didn't enjoy this at all. I was genuinely surprised anyone would enjoy this and felt compelled to search the internet for "why do people like this book". Apparently it was a a book for its time - post-war USA. Zeitgeist perhaps. I don't recommend it.
I read this a few years ago, and thought it was absolute ****; I just couldn't find anything positive to say about it, I don't know how it got published.

It's refreshing to read that someone else thought the same, although I half expect Graham to say that it is indeed a classic, and I'm just too thick to appreciate it (although in much more diplomatic terms than this of course).

Quote Originally Posted by noel View Post
Fahrenheit 451. Pretty good - definitely more of a morality tale than a story.
This was one of our set books when I was 15 and doing 'O' level English literature (which I subsequently failed, along with half of the class). I thought it was pretty good too, although I can't remember much of a morality tale so it probably went straight over my head. Perhaps I am too thick to read the classics after all.

I've thought about 1984 too, but I think I'll wait a year for the 40th anniversary edition