Take most people, they’re crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they’re always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that’s even newer. I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddamn horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake.

…from the favorite novel of every teenager prior to 2004, Catcher in the Rye, by that strange old creeper Mr. Salinger, which is taught in many a high school curriculum for primarily nonsensical reasons, most criminal of which is “historical relevance,” because it’s far less important for a sixteen year-old in 2014 to love reading, or know how (a subsequently learned literary skill), than it is for her to know what the Charleston was.

Do yourself a favor and read this article about why David Mitchell‘s Black Swan Green should replace Mr. Salinger’s fine novel in the Western canon.