First sentences: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.

The landscape outlasts the characters in this book: we begin with a future death scene.

According to his star, John Wayne, the famous Westerns director John Ford used to say (quoted from memory, as I no longer have the video on which he said it), 'Give them the scene then give them the scenery, give them the scenery then give them the scene, but you can't give both at once.' Whether or n...