Books I Read Because I Write, by Josh Stallings

I read for many reasons, for pleasure sure, and also for research. I started a new book this year and for inexplicable reasons I knew John Steinbeck was part of the key to the book’s tone. Along the way I read East of Eden two and a half times. It is a dark deeply rich generational novel. I discovered Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel — The East of Eden Letters, a journal he wrote every day before writing on the novel as a way of warming his writing muscles up for the chapter ahead. It encompasses ...