Hey fellow book lovers! Currently I’m reading my fourth Steinbeck and am again enjoying it a lot. Have you read books from him so far? If yes, which one and how/why did you like it?

  • Carbonation@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    2 years ago

    I really enjoyed Of Mice and Men, I read it in school and the ending really had an impact on young me. Currently having difficulty finishing East of Eden, maybe because it jumps around a lot.

    • Polydeukes@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      This was also the first book I read from him and it really made an impact. East of Eden is my current read. Are you still at the beginning? It gets smoother to read when he has set up all the scenes and the relationships start to develop I feel.

    • CrayonMaster
      1·
      2 years ago

      Of Mice and Men was probably my favorite “high-school lit” book.

      The Pearl on the other hand was my least favorite.

  • NataliePortland@thegarden.land
    2·
    2 years ago

    Which books did you read? Which one currently? I love Steinbeck for his characters. They can seem so real. Sometimes in life you meet someone that’s just so unique, such a one-in-a-million type of person and those are the people you find in his novels, especially East of Eden and Cannery Row.

    I always giggle thinking about the part in cannery row that starts something like “Henri the French painter wasn’t actually French. His name wasn’t really Henri either. And he didn’t paint”

    That book has so much life in it with these little vignettes. I was in Santa Cruz recently and wished I could have made time to visit Salinas and Monterrey but we didn’t get to go. All I know of that area is how he describes it like paradise.

    Tortilla Flats was pretty good too. Grapes of Wrath is obviously incredible but it’s kinda like Requiem for a Dream “that was fantastic. I never want to watch it again”

    I feel that as an American that he lifts us up. That he puts my country on the map for literature on par with Dickens and Victor Hugo and Dostoevsky. I’m proud to have Steinbeck in my cultural heritage

  • OptimistPrime@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    2 years ago

    Travels with Charlie was a great and quick read. It’s about his road trip across America with his dog in his homemade truck bed travel camper.

      • OptimistPrime@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        2 years ago

        Yes I did. He recounts his experiences meeting different people around the country. I hope this isn’t a spoiler, but what I appreciated was his honest opinions about the different areas and people he met. He wasn’t being some pollyanna and trying to find the good in everyone. If he didn’t like someone he met or a particular part of the country, he didn’t sugarcoat it. And by the last part of his trip, he just wanted to get home to his wife, which I found very relatable when I’m traveling for work or have been on a vacation that’s gone on a little too long.