John Steinbeck
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven...
They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.
Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence....
4) Cannery Row
The fiction of John Steinbeck has amassed generations of admirers since first making its mark on the literary landscape in the mid-20th century. The Long Valley is a collection of 12 short stories set in the author's birthplace of Salinas Valley, California. A must-read for Steinbeck fans and for all lovers of American literature, the collection includes "The Murder," "The Chrysanthemums," "The Vigilante," and the classic Red Pony tales.
...A standout in the Steinbeck canon, Cup of Gold is edgy and adventurous, brash and distrustful of society, and sure to add a new dimension to the common perception of this all-American writer. Steinbeck's first novel and sole work of historical fiction contains themes that resonate throughout the author's prodigious body of work. From the mid-1650s through the 1660s, Henry Morgan, a pirate and outlaw of legendary viciousness, ruled the Spanish
...In Dubious Battle is regarded as John Steinbeck's first major novel. Because it stirred up controversy by criticizing social and political practices of the 1930s, Steinbeck found himself accused of being a Communist. But despite this criticism, he went on to create Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, both considered to be masterpieces of American literature. In California apple country, a group of migrant workers decides
...10) Tortilla flat
Set in Monterey, California, Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row, and Sweet Thursday, have become classic fare for both students and aficionados of American literature. Inspired by Arthurian legend, Tortilla Flat became popular in its own time as an escape from the daily grind of the Great Depression. Danny and his friends are paisanos, people of mixed breed who claim pure Spanish descent, live by their own rules, and decline
...Nobel laureate John Steinbeck's bracing from-the-frontlines account of World War II. In 1943 John Steinbeck was on assignment for The New York Herald Tribune, writing from Italy and North Africa, and from England in the midst of the London blitz. In his dispatches he focuses on the human-scale effect of the war, portraying everyone from the guys in a bomber crew to Bob Hope on his USO tour and even fighting alongside soldiers behind enemy
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