Johan Hos Ordre des livres (chronologique)

Tout commence en 1887 au fond de l'arrière-pays canadien : à la disparition de son père, le jeune Joe O'Brien, brusquement chef de famille, met tout en oeuvre pour assurer la subsistance des siens. Dur à la tâche, brillant, il comprend vite que rester enterré dans le Pontiac ne lui suffira jamais. Après la mort de leur mère, il organise avec l'aide d'un vieux jésuite le départ de la fratrie pour une nouvelle vie les filles au couvent, un frère au séminaire, l'autre en Californie et Joe à l'assaut du continent ! Sa rencontre avec l'indépendante Iseult Wilkins donne subitement un sens à sa quête de réussite : de Venice Beach à Montréal en passant par la Colombie-Britannique, Joe ne cessera dès lors d'oeuvrer à l'établissement de son clan. Parcourant deux guerres mondiales, les années folles, la crise de 1929, le second après-guerre, Les O'Brien est tout à la fois la biographie d'un homme exceptionnel, d'un mariage, d'une famille, et l'histoire extrêmement bien documentée d'un siècle, de l'évolution des mentalités à travers les générations qui s'entrechoquent... Avec un talent de conteur exceptionnel, Peter Behrens déploie une épopée moderne dans la tradition du grand roman américain.

The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience.  Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work.  Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land.

The hero-narrator is a sixteen-year-old native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. After leaving his prep school in Pennsylvania, he spends three days navigating New York City. Holden is both simple and complex, making it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about him or his experiences. He is deeply drawn to beauty, almost to the point of being trapped by it. The novel features various voices—children's, adults', and underground—but Holden's voice stands out as the most powerful. His expression transcends his own vernacular while remaining true to it, delivering a poignant mix of pain and pleasure. Like many artistic souls, he internalizes much of his pain, choosing to share his joy with others. This emotional complexity is available for readers who can appreciate it. J.D. Salinger's classic tale of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951 and has been recognized as one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has faced challenges for its candid language and themes of sexuality, becoming a must-read for many teenage boys in the 1950s and 60s.