In response to "Dr. Samsa": I am a relative newcomer to this list too, and I enjoy the tangents we all indulge. One of my favorite things about hanging out with smart, well-read people is the variety of topics that come up in conversation. Nothing is off limits. Books (from Grisham to Shakespeare). Movies (similar range). Food. Sitcoms. The Saturday morning cartoons we watched when we were little. God. Sex. Our Families. The list goes on and on. And the most interesting thing is the way these topics grow organically out of one another. Nobody "changes the subject"; the subject changes us and makes us think of new things in new ways. We are all on this list because we enjoy Salinger, but we have other things on our minds too, things that are, in fact, if you read through all of each thread, related back to the discussion of Salinger. A discussion of Salinger that didn't veer off the beaten path once and a while would be very limited, I think--limited and limiting. Bethany