For Esme - With Love and Squalor

J.D. Salinger published his first short stories in 1940. He was 21 years old. Twenty-one. This guy obviously knows how to write, and some great examples are shown in this collection right here. It was originally known as a book titled Nine Stories. I liked some better than others, but my top three must be the first one, A Perfect Day for Bananafish, which, by the way, he wrote for The New Yorker at age twenty-nine, the title story For Esme, and one called The Laughing Man. I don't know, I'm not much of a critic, but I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters were nicely described, although sometimes not quite enough for my liking, the dialogues were on point and the sentences just beautifully written. Short story writing at its best.