<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"Published by Little, Brown and Company, January 1963"--Title page verso.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>The last book-length work of fiction by J. D. Salinger published in his lifetime collects two novellas about one of the liveliest, funniest, most fully realized families in all fiction (<i>New York Times</i>).</b><b><br></b><b><br></b>These two novellas, set seventeen years apart, are both concerned with Seymour Glass--the eldest son of J. D. Salinger's fictional Glass family--as recalled by his closest brother, Buddy. <p/><i>He was a great many things to a great many people while he lived, and virtually all things to his brothers and sisters in our somewhat outsized family. Surely he was all real things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience, our supercargo, and our one full poet...</i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>No American writer will ever have a more alert ear, a more attentive eye, or a more ardent heart than Salinger's.--<b>Adam Gopnik</b>, <i><b>New Yorker</b></i><br><br>Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can't say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction.--<b>J. D. Salinger</b><br><br>Salinger's final confrontation with all the strains of his earlier fiction: sentimentality, depression, Eastern philosophy, isolation, and the guilt of being happy.--<b>Chris Wilson</b>, <i><b>Slate</b></i><br><br>We mustn't be blind to what Salinger has accomplished by virtue of his overabundant love...The Glass stories retain an extraordinary interest and appeal.--<b>John Romano</b>, <i><b>New York Times</b></i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>J. D. Salinger was born in New York City on January 1, 1919, and died in Cornish, New Hampshire, on January 27, 2010. His stories appeared in many magazines, most notably <i>The New Yorker</i>. Between 1951 and 1963 he produced four book-length works of fiction: <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>; <i>Nine Stories</i>; <i>Franny and Zooey</i>; and <i>Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour--An Introduction</i>. The books have been embraced and celebrated throughout the world and have been credited with instilling in many a lifelong love of reading.