I’m about to turn 27 years old, and somehow I’ve made it through life — not to mention high school English classes, specifically — without yet having read Catcher in the Rye.

I’ve read a lot of books in my still young life, including a lot of classics. I devoured Old Man and the Sea, which still stands as perhaps my favorite book and which undoubtedly gave Papa Hemingway the Mike’s Favorite Author trophy, in a single night. (I know that’s not much of an accomplishment, as it’s a rather short book. Shut up.) But somehow, this post-World War II novel slipped by.

My bookshelf looks like “who’s who” of lit class syllabi, with the Hemingway, Orwell, Fitzgerald, Vonnegut, Updike. Those, coupled with my collection of journalism and political science textbooks, make for quite the geeky personal library.

I believe it was A Farewell to Arms I was in the middle of when a friend once asked, “Who the hell are you trying to impress?”

Honestly, I’m just looking for authors who’ll impress me.

Photo courtesy of Reini68 on Flickr