Great Modern Short Novels

by John Steinbeck, James Hilton, Graham Greene

Stories by several authors. Starts with Steinbeck's The Red Pony

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward F. Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. By the 75th anniversary of its publishing date, it had sold 14 million copies.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contents (in order): "Lost Horizon," by James Hilton; "The Red Pony," by John Steinbeck; "The Third Man," by Graham Greene; "A Single Pebble," by John Hersey; "The Light in the Piazza," by Elizabeth Spencer; "Seize The Day," by Saul Bellow; and "Breakfast at Tiffany's," by Truman Capote.

I am reading these and listing each of them in the “read” list and will mark this as “read” when I’ve finished them all.

6/9/20: now have read five of the seven. A perfect lake-house library book.

6/22/20: Another weekend, another one of the "short novels" down. Now only Saul Bellow's "Seize The Day" to go.

7/12/20: Unwittingly saved the worst for last. Now I know I will never need to read anything else by Saul Bellow. And to make it more aggravating, I lost the review I was writing on an iPad. Will give it a glorious 1.49 star write-up when I have a computer.

Giving the "Great Modern Short Novels" collection three stars because that's the average of the seven tales contained therein. (Rounded up, that is. "Seize the Day" dropped the average below three)