R.I.P.

It has been a month in which a fair few writerly olds - as Gawker might put it - have departed. Happily after they have lived long.

JD Salinger wrote a book which everyone carried out around when young to indicate that they totally identified with adolescent angst. The other books were unreadable so no one read Salinger once they left academics.

Erich Segal wrote a silly novel called Love Story and and no one had to use the sorry word again., except pollies of various stripes.  He also wrote a book called The Class, the over many years kind of book Americans like to write. The most fascinating part for me was all that bit on Greek Classics (Segal taught Greek & Latin Lit.).

Louis Auchincloss wrote about the upper crust and in an old fashioned way. That is enough for an author to lose street cred these days though I don't mind a bit of old fashioned now and then. Should I test the Auchincloss waters? I am still undecided.

I have never read Howard Zinn. But judging by the eulogies, I should definitely dip more than a toe into A People's History.