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If you’re wondering where to start with this writer’s strong, clean prose, we’ve compiled a list of the 15 best John Steinbeck books. 1. East of Eden (1952) This 1952 novel is a book of Biblical scope and intensity. In telling the multi-generational stories of the Hamilton and Trask families, Steinbeck also tells the story of the Salinas ...
- 11 Favorite Books by Ernest Hemingway
Blog – Posted on Thursday, Apr 11 11 Best Ernest Hemingway...
- Short Stories
14. Dubliners by James Joyce. If you’ve ever wondered what...
- 11 Favorite Books by Ernest Hemingway
- Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from The War
- Cannery Row
- Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research
- Of Mice and Men
- The Pearl
- Travels with Charley: in Search of America
- East of Eden
- The Grapes of Wrath
True, this book is noteworthy in that it was published in 2012, decades after the writer's death, but it's still worth a read for those interested in one of the United States' greatest writers taking on one of his country's most doomed conflicts. Steinbeck, writing in-country during the Vietnam War for American magazines, was curiously pro-war, whi...
A body of work can be sliced up in numerous ways: into epochs, archetypes, and even series. But Cannery belongs on this list because it's one of Steinbeck's few comedies. Its sundry cast of characters includes a marine biologist, a grocery owner, and a band of derelicts that spend a good portion of their lives drunk as a band of skunks. It's under ...
You know the joke: A writer and a marine biologist set off in a boat. Well, maybe it's not a joke, but that's at least the setup for Cortez, which was written off a six-week exploration of the Gulf of California. The result, published in 1941, was the narrative of the trip interspersed with Ricketts' specimen entries. Rickets was killed in a train ...
Maybe you were scared off after measuring the thickness of Grapes of Wrath. Start here. Or maybe you're a longtime Steinbeck fan and know his bibliography inside and out. Still start here. While the author published 33 books over his life, many, including Mice, were in novella form, which falls in length somewhere between a long short story and a s...
A novella, sure, but really this book could be accurately described as an allegory. It supposedly was based on a Mexican folk tale, and it follows a native pearl diver, Kino, whose son has been stung by a scorpion. Shortly after, he discovers a large pearl in an oyster, which he dubs "the Pearl of the World." Word spreads quickly around the village...
A non-fictiontravelogue that follows the writer's journey across America and back again, Travels may not have the manic pace of other well-known books in a similar vein (Jack Kerouac's On the Road especially comes to mind), but it allowed Steinbeck to speak to longtime fans with a directness often obscured in his fiction. Driving a specially adapte...
There's only one pole position, so we select Eden, which was viewed by the author as the epitome of his work. Who are we to contradict? This sprawling tale uses a biblical allegory with the book of Genesis, hinting at the Cain and Abel throughout as the two brother protagonists both try to please an imperfect father. Granted, it spans generations o...
Taking the top spot, as part of Steinbeck's unofficial Dustbowl Trilogy, which also includes Of Mice and Men, this is considered by many to be the author's greatest work -- one of the main reasons schools across the country read it. It follows an Oklahoman family's migration west to California during the Great Depression, and, like Upton Sinclair's...
- 32 ) The Forgotten Village. Goodreads: 31. Amazon: 32. LibraryThing: 30. There have been several notable examples of this pen-camera method of narration, but “The Forgotten Village” is unique among them in that the text was written before a single picture was shot.
- 31 ) Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team. Goodreads: 32. Amazon: 31. LibraryThing: 27. A magnificent volume of short novels and an essential World War II report from one of America’s great twentieth-century writers On the heels of the enormous success of his masterwork The Grapes of Wrath-and at the height of the American war effort-John Steinbeck, one of the most prolific and influential literary figures of his generation, wrote Bombs Away, a nonfiction account of his experiences with U.S. Army Air Force bomber crews during World War II.
- 30 ) Cup of Gold. Goodreads: 30. Amazon: 26. LibraryThing: 31. From the mid-1650s through the 1660s, Henry Morgan, a pirate and outlaw of legendary viciousness, ruled the Spanish Main.
- 28 ) The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication. Goodreads: 26. Amazon: 30. LibraryThing: 26. Steinbeck’s only work of political satire turns the French Revolution on its head, as amateur astronomer Pippin Heristal is drafted in to rule the unruly French.
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- Of Mice and Men. This short novella by Steinbeck is considered one of his best works. Published in 1937, ‘Of Mice and Men‘ is set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, two historically eclectic events which devastated America between 1929 and 1940.
- Cannery Row. Written by John Steinbeck in 1945, Cannery Row centers around community living and the interesting diversities of life and life choices therein.
- Sweet Thursday. This short book takes the reader through a captivating story that connects back to Steinbeck’s 1945’s Cannery Row, except this time, it’s hitting the readership with a new twist in romance and a small-town love affair.
- To a God Unknown. Published in the year 1933, this book is clearly one of Steinbeck’s earliest works of literature. Still, it is nonetheless befitting of the quality of a modern-day book.
Apr 4, 2014 · As he pulled his truck out of Sag Harbor, New York, Steinbeck was “In Search of America,” the subtitle of this admittedly highly personal, idiosyncratic, funny and playful narrative. His ...
Dec 16, 2014 · Despite, or perhaps because of, this furore The Grapes of Wrath became the best-selling book of 1939, selling almost half a million copies (at $2.75 a copy) in the first year of publication alone ...
Apr 16, 2024 · The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic ...
