Serena Magliulo Magliulo itibaren El Carmen, 37299 León, Gto., Mexico
This is, I think, Salinger's best book. Begins and ends with a suicide, but oh well! In particular, "Perfect Day for Bannanafish" and "For Esme with Love and Squalor" and, maybe, "Teddy," are just amazing stories. There are about 15 stories I've read in my life that seem just perfect, and "For Esme" is one of them. It's probably the most affecting story about war that I've read (on par with "The Things They Carried"), though it actually dodges the war, itself -- i.e. the story takes place immediately before and after the war, and there's a large dark narrative hole between the two sides. We end wit the broken and painful aftermath. Much of this collection of stories is really about the ways in which WWII destroyed the soldiers who survived.