Nine Stories

"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."

"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."