Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1991, Paperback, Reissue)

Holden Caulfield, a teenager growing up in New York during the 1950s, has been expelled from yet another school. (This time, it's Pencey Prep.) His teachers had found him to be incompetent and an underachiever. After coming to the conclusion the so-called "friends" he had made were phonies, Holden decides he has no reason to stay. He packs his bags and leaves, deciding to "take a vacation" in New York before returning to his parents' inevitable wrath. Told as a monologue, The Catcher in the Rye not only describes Holden's thoughts and activities throughout these few days, but it also goes back to his past. He describes some of his true friends, how his parents and childhood were,and gives reasons for his actions. (Like deciding not to have sex with a prostitute.) These few days can probably be best described as a developing nervous breakdown, a result of his unexplained depression, impulsive spending and generally odd, erratic behavior. However, life continues on around Holden as it always has, with the majority of people ignoring the changes that occur in him- until it begins to get them seriously ticked off. Progressively through the novel we are challenged to think about society's attitude to the human condition - does society have an 'ostrich in the sand' mentality, a deliberate ignorance of the emptiness that can characterize human existence? And if so, when Caulfield begins to probe and investigate his own sense of emptiness and isolation, before finally declaring that the world is full of 'phonies' with each one out for their own phony gain, is Holden actually the one who is going insane, or is it society which has lost it's mind for failing to see the hopelessness of its own existence? This is a timeless classic, not to be missed.