Looking for a travel destination this holiday season? What about taking CNN.com’s recommendation and coming to New York City to visit the real-life places Holden Caulfield gazed on in the classic Catcher In the Rye?!?

Because nothing says “family” and “giving” and “holiday season” like a harrowing, existentially melancholy novel about angst and alienation narrated by a teenager in a mental asylum. Come on. Granted, the novel is a bonafide American classic, but, seriously? As a holiday trip? Is this meant ironically? Isn’t there a point getting missed in here? Not to mention this is probably a similar route to the one Mark David Chapman took before he capped John Lennon. Hey, this holiday let’s go to Romania and follow the same route to Auschwitz Elie Wiesel took in Night! Wouldn’t that be a riot?!?

To each his own, I guess. It is neat to see people still really enjoy Salinger’s book, though.

Ruth Freer, an English teacher at Highland Park High School, about 30 miles from Chicago, teaches “The Catcher in the Rye,” and she created a “Holden tour” for herself on a visit to Manhattan not long ago. She took pictures of all the places mentioned in the book to share with her students.

“I think the novel encourages readers to visit New York, and when they do, they can’t help seeing some of what Holden sees,” Freer said. “I know my students often bring me pictures of themselves posed strategically in places mentioned in the book. They love it, and so do I. … While New York is a quintessential part of ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ teens everywhere respond to Holden’s journey.”

General, Books