by George Giannakos and Robyn Yager | Slowing down a little and breaking out a good book is never a bad idea. But what to read? You could walk into any bookstore and roll the dice on a recent release, but here’s another option: pick up a book that you last put down 5, 10, or 20 years ago. For the next book in Scout’s Read It (Again) series, we’ve picked J.D. Salinger’s timeless 1951 classic, The Catcher In The Rye.

Why you should Read It (Again): 63 years ago, J.D. Salinger not only let the young but cynical Holden Caulfield loose on New York City, but also allowed him two hundred and fourteen pages to tell us all about it. His misadventures are full of tall tales, profanity, promiscuity and disillusioned opinions on all subjects, which is to say that they appeal directly to the adolescent in all of us. That it continues to be one of the most challenged and oft-censored books in American history is reason enough to pick it up again. Plus it’s Fall, which is the perfect time of year for this book, and we wouldn’t mind hearing people bring back the word “phoney”.

Pair it with: a Scotch & Soda a la Holden whilst wearing your finest red deer hunting hat in an old hotel lobby, ideally The Sylvia (Hotel Vancouver or The Empress will also do).

OTHER CLASSIC PAIRINGS