HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
Loading...

Nine Stories (original 1953; edition 2001)

by J.D. Salinger

Series: Glass Family (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
11,694112547 (4.14)2 / 119
The "original, first-rate, serious, and beautiful" short fiction (New York Times Book Review) that introduced J. D. Salinger to American readers in the years after World War II, including "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and the first appearance of Salinger's fictional Glass family. Nine exceptional stories from one of the great literary voices of the twentieth century. Witty, urbane, and frequently affecting, Nine Stories sits alongside Salinger's very best work--a treasure that will passed down for many generations to come. The stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut Just Before the War with the Eskimos The Laughing Man Down at the Dinghy For Esmé--with Love and Squalor Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period Teddy… (more)
Member:dfdunham
Title:Nine Stories
Authors:J.D. Salinger
Info:Back Bay Books (2001), Paperback, 320 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:fiction, short stories

Work Information

Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger (Author) (1953)

  1. 20
    Zen Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) by Peter Harris (hayfa)
    hayfa: If you liked "Teddy" I think you'll like this book. It's poetry by monks and it has all that sort of things that Teddy was talking about.
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

» See also 119 mentions

English (101)  Dutch (4)  Portuguese (Brazil) (2)  Spanish (2)  German (1)  All languages (110)
Showing 1-5 of 101 (next | show all)
Salinger in the mood for stories. Always. ( )
  ben_r47 | Feb 22, 2024 |
Hmm. Not quite as good as I remembered. But I still really like "The Laughing Man" and "Just Before the War with the Eskimos". ( )
  thewilyf | Dec 25, 2023 |
Loved it of course! ( )
  DKnight0918 | Dec 23, 2023 |
A young woman discusses her husband’s strange behavior on the phone with her mother while the husband is out exhibiting, well, strange behavior. Two college roommates get together in an affluent Connecticut suburb to drink and compare disillusionments in their lives. A teenage girl visits the home of a schoolmate to collect on a debt and winds up having an awkward conversation with her friend’s brother. A man reminisces about a time in his youth when he was part of organized activity group led by a memorable storyteller. A young mother seems in over her head dealing with her precocious, but disturbed, son. A man recalls an impactful encounter with a young girl he met years before while waiting to be deployed in the war. A man calls his business partner worrying about his missing wife not realizing the partner knows exactly where she is. A man remembers a time in his life when he pretended to be an accomplished artist to get an ill-fated job at a correspondence school. A ten-year old child prodigy has an unsettling conversation on a cruise ship in which he appears to predict his own demise.

Those are very brief summaries of the tales comprising Nine Stories, a short fiction collection by legendary author J. D. Salinger. Published shortly after the Second World War, that cathartic event infuses many of these stories, either directly or indirectly, as many of the characters have been affected by the loss of loved ones or the challenges of returning to civilian life. The collection is also notable for offering glimpses into complex situations where details are often not revealed fully until the end, if at all. Instead, much of the narrative development takes place through dialogue rather than direct action. This stylistic choice gives the reader a sense of eavesdropping on the various scenes, which proves to be a very effective device, mainly because the author is so good at writing conversations that real people might have actually had with one another. While all the selections were good, there were a few that were truly outstanding and elegiac in their own way, including “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, “For Esme-With Love and Squalor”, and “The Laughing Man”. Overall, this is a book that is thoroughly original and one that has clearly stood the test of time. ( )
  browner56 | Jun 8, 2023 |
i was sick in bed with my first autumn cold of eighth grade (not that i am anything as glamorous as "sickly" just vaguely weak in constitution), and my brother Owen brought me _Nine Stories_ to read. i was pretty sure i should pretend i'd already read it because there was something like a secret Salinger cult operating in my house, and frankly, i felt (more than) a little left-out. so i humbled myself, accepted the invitation/offering (even better than a cool lima bean!), and eventually distinguished myself as the most zealous and irrational member of said cult. yay! ( )
  alison-rose | May 22, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 101 (next | show all)
J. D. Salinger's writing is original, first-rate, serious, and beautiful. Here are nine of his stories, and one further reason that they are so interesting, and so powerful seen all together, is that they are paradoxes. From the outside, they are often very funny: inside they are about heartbreak, and convey it; they can do this because they are pure...What this reader loves about Mr. Salinger's stories is that they honor what is unique and precious in each person on earth. Their author has the courage--it is more like the earned right and privilege--to experiment at the risk of not being understood. Best of all, he has a loving heart.
added by vibesandall | editNew York Times Book Review, Eudora Welty
 
The most perfectly balanced collection of stories I know...Nine Stories is a book I've gone back to at different moments in my life, and I always find something new. I've passionately loved different stories at different times, first 'Teddy,' later 'For Esmé--with Love and Squalor.' I could list all of them.
added by vibesandall | editParade, Ann Patchett
 

» Add other authors (91 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Salinger, J. D.Authorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Böll, AnnemarieTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Böll, HeinrichTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Benton-Harris, JohnCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fruttero, CarloTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Judd, RogerCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Schnack, ElisabethTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
We know the sound of two hands clapping.
But what is the sound of one hand clapping?
-- a Zen koan
Dedication
To Dorothy Olding and Gus Lobrano
First words
There were ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through.
Quotations
Life is a gift horse in my opinion.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Non-U.S. editions of J.D. Salinger's short story collection Nine Stories are titled For Esmé - with Love and Squalor, and Other Stories. "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor" is also the title of a single Salinger short story from Nine Stories. Please distinguish between the collection of stories (this LT work) and the separate short story having the same title. Thank you.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

The "original, first-rate, serious, and beautiful" short fiction (New York Times Book Review) that introduced J. D. Salinger to American readers in the years after World War II, including "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and the first appearance of Salinger's fictional Glass family. Nine exceptional stories from one of the great literary voices of the twentieth century. Witty, urbane, and frequently affecting, Nine Stories sits alongside Salinger's very best work--a treasure that will passed down for many generations to come. The stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut Just Before the War with the Eskimos The Laughing Man Down at the Dinghy For Esmé--with Love and Squalor Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period Teddy

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Published as Nine Stories in the U.S., and as For Esmé - with Love and Squalor, and Other Stories in the U.K. and other countries.
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.14)
0.5
1 15
1.5 2
2 79
2.5 21
3 375
3.5 101
4 872
4.5 113
5 967

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

Hachette Book Group

3 editions of this book were published by Hachette Book Group.

Editions: 0316769509, 0316767727, 0316769568

Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

» Publisher information page

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,189,046 books! | Top bar: Always visible