Some books are special.  Some you find exactly when you need to find them.

I found Franny and Zooey after I graduated from high school, during the interminably long summer before I went off to college, far away in New York.

It made me realize, perhaps, that I needed to be fiercely curious, in fact I needed to be in pursuit of curiosities instead of wallowing in the uncomfortable world I had known.

Jesse Kornbluth on Franny and Zooey.