David Nicholls

Hello, my name is David Nicholls, and the first book I wanted to talk about today is Franny and Zooey by J.D.

Salinger.

I love The Catcher in the Rye, but this is my favourite Salinger book for many reasons.

Salinger is brilliant about family, and this is about a brother and sister.

It's really two books, a short story and a novella.

Franny is the sister, Zooey is the brother.

And the tortured complications of the Glass family are a rather bohemian New York family.

And I love the wit of the writing.

This is a book I go back to again and again because Salinger is so good on adolescence and youth, on the idealism and the rather self-conscious cynicism of it.

It's a really, really funny book.

There's a long dialogue sequence between Zooey and his mom where Zooey's trying to have a bath and is constantly interrupted by his overbearing mother that I think is just brilliantly witty and well-observed.

And it's extremely emotional as well.

I must have read this book ten times.

I've never...

finished it without crying.

It's a great underrated book, I think.

I think it's easily up there with The Catcher in the Rye.

And I absolutely love it.

It's always been a big inspiration for all my novels.

So my second choice, given that I'm in Australia, is a novella, another short book by Helen Garner, The Children's Bark.