Catcher In The Rye

I read this book under direction from friends who highly recommended it after studying it for their GCSE (I studied the fantastic To Kill a Mockingbird). I had high expectations and hopes. Catcher In The Rye is a good book. It just didn't grab me the way I felt it should. It is essentially 200 pages of complaining, criticising, hypocritical behaviour and repetition. Yes, Salinger captures a very unique form of narration. The characterisation is excellent. But, there needed to be some plot behind it. Boy gets expelled and complains about it. That's not enough for me. I could understand what Salinger was trying to do, and he did it excellently, but I found it slightly irritating. It would have been equally as good as a short story.

Put Out More Flags - Evelyn Waugh

I was intrigued to read more of Waugh's books after reading A Handful of Dust. Without much knowledge of which were the best, I chose this Put Out More Flags. It depicts the period of the phoney war, when WW2 had broken out but there was little to no fighting. Basil Seal is a wonderful character; adventurous and imaginative.
I like the idea of characters recurring throughout his novels, without them being in a series as such. Decline and Fall is next on my Waugh-list, and contains some of the same characters. I look forward to reading it.
Funny, satirical, insightful.
A Handful of Dust is clearly the better book, but I thoroughly enjoyed this.