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Of Mice and Men
by
“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's
why.”
They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle w ...more
why.”
They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle w ...more
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Paperback, Steinbeck Centennial Edition, US / CAN Edition, 112 pages
Published
2002
by Penguin Books
(first published February 25th 1937)
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The title of this novel is only 50% accurate, a very poor effort. Yes, it’s about men, but there’s little or nothing about mice in these pages. Mice enthusiasts will come away disappointed. This got me thinking about other novel titles. You would have to say that such books as The Slap, The Help, The Great Gatsby, Gangsta Granny, Mrs Dalloway and Hamlet have very good titles because they are all about a slap, some help, a Gatsby who was really great, a no good granny, a woman who was married to
...more

Well, somehow I've managed to read close to 800 books by now, and none of those had been Of Mice and Men. That has been remedied now, and I'm feeling emotionally drained by it. So yeah.
I suppose pretty much everyone knows the heartbreaking story of Lennie and George. I was relatively 'unspoiled' and still knew what happened in the end. I just did not know how or why, but figured out those pretty quickly into the book. And still that did not help the sense of impending doom that was like one prot ...more

Sep 22, 2007
Kemper
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
plain-old-fiction,
famous-books
I needed a quick read because I stupidly forgot that the library would be closed yesterday for Veteran's Day. I'd exhausted my current supply, and I needed a short term fix to hold me until I could get some new product today. So I grabbed Of Mice and Men off the bookshelf last night.
And I'm glad I did because I'd somehow remembered that this was a depressing book. How wrong I was! Oh, sure there were some tense moments like when you think Lennie will accidently hurt Curley's wife in the barn. Wh ...more
And I'm glad I did because I'd somehow remembered that this was a depressing book. How wrong I was! Oh, sure there were some tense moments like when you think Lennie will accidently hurt Curley's wife in the barn. Wh ...more

I remember reading this at school at being completely uninterested in the story. I remember the teacher droning on about basic plot allegories before we read each section; she would tell us what certain things “meant” before we had even seen them. She would explain how this portrays a vital part of American culture and a vital element of human nature. All in all we were told what to see in the book before we even began reading.
Perhaps she should have just let us read it first, and see what we t ...more
Perhaps she should have just let us read it first, and see what we t ...more

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Friendship, dream, agony.This book is not an easy read by any means. But while the book graced with beautiful friendships and human kindness, it also explores the darkest aspects of humanity and ugly racism. That's a story of the love of one man for his friend, he is willing to give up so much to help his friend because he loves him like a brother. That's a masterfully written book with a very tragic ending and I couldn't stop my tears.

Friendship, dream, agony.This book is not an easy read by any means. But while the book graced with beautiful friendships and human kindness, it also explores the darkest aspects of humanity and ugly racism. That's a story of the love of one man for his friend, he is willing to give up so much to help his friend because he loves him like a brother. That's a masterfully written book with a very tragic ending and I couldn't stop my tears.
I got you to look after...more

(Book 608 from 1001 books) - Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men is a novella written by author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937.
Of Mice and Men tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «موشها و آدمها»؛ نویسنده: جان استاینبک (اشتاین بک)؛ انتشاراتیهای: (اساطیر، امیرکبیر، کانون معرفت، زر ...more
Of Mice and Men is a novella written by author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937.
Of Mice and Men tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «موشها و آدمها»؛ نویسنده: جان استاینبک (اشتاین بک)؛ انتشاراتیهای: (اساطیر، امیرکبیر، کانون معرفت، زر ...more

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a novella (around 72 pages) that focuses on two men in The Great Depression Era. George is a small man while Lennie is the bigger man. They are two farmhands who have a big dream to one day own their own small place. However, George and Lennie have just been run out of town. Is this ranch their second chance? Will George and Lennie realize their dream?
Of Mice and Men is a very dark novella. I mean dark. Steinbeck is a master at setting the scene. He begins eac ...more
Of Mice and Men is a very dark novella. I mean dark. Steinbeck is a master at setting the scene. He begins eac ...more

“Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em. ”
Breathtaking prose, touching characters and a heart breaking ending. Who said only lengthy novel can make an impact? ...more
Breathtaking prose, touching characters and a heart breaking ending. Who said only lengthy novel can make an impact? ...more

Oh shit. Don't laugh at me but I just now got this:

Of Mice & Men has been on my bucket list for a while. It's one of those stories that are kind of everywhere, but somehow I've still managed to avoid spoilers for the past 45 years.
How?
I'm going to go out on a long shaky limb and say it's probably because nothing about me lends itself to paying any attention to mopey books about ranch hands.

Steinbeck covers a lot of ground in this relatively small tale. The casually horrible racism, the plight ...more

Of Mice & Men has been on my bucket list for a while. It's one of those stories that are kind of everywhere, but somehow I've still managed to avoid spoilers for the past 45 years.
How?
I'm going to go out on a long shaky limb and say it's probably because nothing about me lends itself to paying any attention to mopey books about ranch hands.

Steinbeck covers a lot of ground in this relatively small tale. The casually horrible racism, the plight ...more

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves..."
Oscar Wilde's prison poem came to mind not only for its literal truth in the context of Lenny and George, but also because it evokes the brutal isolation of the whole cast of characters, each one of them stuck in their separate reality and unable to connect with each other. The young lonely wife has nobody to confide in, and keeps looking for trouble out of sheer isolation. The black man is so utterly alone that he is almost insane, and the barrier of ...more
Oscar Wilde's prison poem came to mind not only for its literal truth in the context of Lenny and George, but also because it evokes the brutal isolation of the whole cast of characters, each one of them stuck in their separate reality and unable to connect with each other. The young lonely wife has nobody to confide in, and keeps looking for trouble out of sheer isolation. The black man is so utterly alone that he is almost insane, and the barrier of ...more

I think I've been avoiding John Steinbeck, consciously or subconsciously, ever since I was a horse-loving teenager and thought that The Red Pony would be a nice, pleasant book to read.
I didn't read any Steinbeck books for years.
But I was in the local library, puttering around in the general fiction shelves, and happened to pull this one out and noticed how short it was--only 107 pages. I had just finished reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was a 127-page overdose of cheesy 70's inspira ...more

I didn't read any Steinbeck books for years.
But I was in the local library, puttering around in the general fiction shelves, and happened to pull this one out and noticed how short it was--only 107 pages. I had just finished reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was a 127-page overdose of cheesy 70's inspira ...more

Sometimes people can do awful things, sometimes they mean it, and sometimes they don't.
In this novel we learn the story of "George" and "Lennie". Two wandering day laborers traveling together; from work to work, from trouble to trouble. One small and cunning; the other giant, and retarded. Working from city to city, from field to field, but always protecting each other. A dream pushes them forward, work the fields until one day have enough to purchase a small farm of their own. A place where Geo ...more
In this novel we learn the story of "George" and "Lennie". Two wandering day laborers traveling together; from work to work, from trouble to trouble. One small and cunning; the other giant, and retarded. Working from city to city, from field to field, but always protecting each other. A dream pushes them forward, work the fields until one day have enough to purchase a small farm of their own. A place where Geo ...more


I read this book for the second time and it's one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read. Till now, it’s my favourite Steinbeck book.


"Hey Tim, old buddy… I hear you've been depressed recently. A book should cheer you up, right?"
"Why yes Tim, that sounds delightful. Got any good ideas?"
"How about a classic?"
"Brilliant idea Tim! One I haven't read?"
"Of course! How about Steinbeck?"
"I don't know… I hear he's a bit depressing."
"Come now, it's only 105 pages! How depressing could it be?"
…
Should I just end the review there? Nah, of course not.
Of Mice and Men is one of those books that pretty much everyone has read. I once saw an ...more
"Why yes Tim, that sounds delightful. Got any good ideas?"
"How about a classic?"
"Brilliant idea Tim! One I haven't read?"
"Of course! How about Steinbeck?"
"I don't know… I hear he's a bit depressing."
"Come now, it's only 105 pages! How depressing could it be?"
…
Should I just end the review there? Nah, of course not.

Of Mice and Men is one of those books that pretty much everyone has read. I once saw an ...more

It's the way Steinbeck describes things that gets me.
"Crooks, the negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness room; a little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn. On one side of the little room there was a square four-paned window, and on the other, a narrow plank door leading into the barn. Crooks' bunk was a long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung. On the wall by the window there were pegs on which hung broken harness in process of being mended; strips of new leath ...more
"Crooks, the negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness room; a little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn. On one side of the little room there was a square four-paned window, and on the other, a narrow plank door leading into the barn. Crooks' bunk was a long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung. On the wall by the window there were pegs on which hung broken harness in process of being mended; strips of new leath ...more

I know that this is a reread for me, but I never had Of Mice and Men marked as read in Goodreads. I am pretty sure it was required reading in high school and I know I enjoyed it the first time around. And, as luck would have it, I enjoyed it this time as well.
I can sum it up by saying that Steinbeck can write (and that is an understatement)! I have loved every book I have read by him. The descriptions are vivid, the characters are richly developed, and stories are powerful. Of Mice and Men is no ...more
I can sum it up by saying that Steinbeck can write (and that is an understatement)! I have loved every book I have read by him. The descriptions are vivid, the characters are richly developed, and stories are powerful. Of Mice and Men is no ...more

So it starts as you lay there awake, in the quiet hours of night, lulling your head to be hushed of those deafening thoughts, faces, voices, you kept on getting day long, as you con your head into forged drowsiness, and it starts dawning on you, the coiled snake sitting in the corner of your mind tilts its head, clogs every nerve in his coil, deep-seated thought of being all alone in this universe of biological process over process strikes you to the core, universal loneliness houses your whole
...more

May 20, 2014
Joe Valdez
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
california,
fiction-general
What more can I possibly add to a discussion of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men without drawing a high school English teacher's salary? Considering I'm not drawing bored glances from teenagers, I doubt that a check from LAUSD will appear in my mailbox anytime soon.
-- Published in 1937, this is the work that the Goodreads algorithms seem to have agreed is the author's most renowned. For Stephen King, it's The Shining, for Elmore Leonard it's Get Shorty and for John Steinbeck it's Of Mice and Me ...more
-- Published in 1937, this is the work that the Goodreads algorithms seem to have agreed is the author's most renowned. For Stephen King, it's The Shining, for Elmore Leonard it's Get Shorty and for John Steinbeck it's Of Mice and Me ...more

A book I'd read an awfully long time ago, when pocket calculators were still the latest thing.
Such an iconic staple of American literature, wherein George and Lennie, migrant labourers in the Cali dustbowl, form an unlikely bond in a tale of brutality and tenderness.
Typical of Steinbeck, his 'no-fucking-about' narrative fast-tracks his examination of human morality, culminating in a story that has since been immortalised on film and stage.
Steinbeck strived for gritty realism and wrote about a ti ...more
Such an iconic staple of American literature, wherein George and Lennie, migrant labourers in the Cali dustbowl, form an unlikely bond in a tale of brutality and tenderness.
Typical of Steinbeck, his 'no-fucking-about' narrative fast-tracks his examination of human morality, culminating in a story that has since been immortalised on film and stage.
Steinbeck strived for gritty realism and wrote about a ti ...more

Over the past year, I have rediscovered John Steinbeck as a master American story teller. Having read Cannery Row and its follow up Sweet Thursday, I realized what a prolific author Steinbeck was and hope to continue my reading with a number of his novels this year. One novella I did read while in school but have a fuzzy memory of is Of Mice and Men. With a square on this year's classic bingo board being read a group read that you haven't read yet, I decided that it was as good a time as any to
...more

May 09, 2013
MischaS_
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
czech,
maturita-ceska
“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
Sometimes, there is nothing to say because the author said it for you.
Sometimes, there is nothing to say because the author said it for you.

If you want to feel real sad, absorb Steinbeck's pitch perfect prose right to your dome. A worthwhile bummer of a great book.
When I was in college taking teaching courses I graded a lot of homework about this book. It was pretty magical, interacting with a novel I had loved when I read it in school and seeing it again through the opinions of young students. I’ve always found I like a novel more when I can dig into it and being able to be on the teaching side really opened it up further, especial ...more
When I was in college taking teaching courses I graded a lot of homework about this book. It was pretty magical, interacting with a novel I had loved when I read it in school and seeing it again through the opinions of young students. I’ve always found I like a novel more when I can dig into it and being able to be on the teaching side really opened it up further, especial ...more

Of Mice and Men is a tale about the ultimate kindness - it is hard to talk about kindness without turning sentimental but John Steinbeck was the one who really could.
Simple men of this cruel world live in their own dreamlands and they dream of rainbows.
His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.
Simple men of this cruel world live in their own dreamlands and they dream of rainbows.

“Me an’ you.”
“You . . . an’ me."
First published in 1937, I am glad I finally read and listened to this unforgettable story of dreams and beautiful friendship.
Set during the Great Depression in Soledad, California this is a story of George and Lennie two migrant workers traveling from job to job working on ranches in the Salinas Valley.
The audio read by Gary Sinise was perfect giving the characters their personalities. I know there's a film with the same name which Sinise also starred in ...more

A kind of modern fairy tale of a little intelligent man and a big powerful giant, however shall we say quite dumb ( intellectually challenged). The friends wander California's many dusty roads and get any job possible, as lowly migrant farmhands during the harsh lengthy Great Depression, 1929- 1939 just trying to survive the deluge, nothing very special here the sad truth be told, as so many millions of
others are in the same frightening situation, starvation. George Milton the little guy is al ...more
others are in the same frightening situation, starvation. George Milton the little guy is al ...more

Apr 06, 2020
Baba
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
contemporary,
modernclassic
Drifters, streetwise George and not-so-bright, but big and strong Lennie's ultimate goal is a place they can call home and their part of the American Dream. Steinbeck's understated, and exquisite modern classic set in the valleys and fields of California.

It feels a disservice to have read this famous tome within a single day; but also it shows that how much Steinbeck impacted the world of literature and wider, in a book that just tops 120 pages. A parable on what it is like to be a human being, ...more

It feels a disservice to have read this famous tome within a single day; but also it shows that how much Steinbeck impacted the world of literature and wider, in a book that just tops 120 pages. A parable on what it is like to be a human being, ...more

May 14, 2016
Whitney Atkinson
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-in-2016
I think it's tradition for me to finish a classic and think, "That was good, but I wonder what insights and symbolism I missed out on since I didn't read this for class and have a professor telling me about it." It's also just really hard to review classics in general, because whereas "normal" books I can pick apart the plot, characters, pace, etc., there's something different about these. I feel like I always expect classics to be deep and mindblowing with huge world-shifting themes, but in rea
...more

Aug 30, 2014
Dolors
rated it
really liked it
Recommends it for:
Those striving for dreams & friendship
Shelves:
read-in-2014
Only a writer capable of assembling the symbolic with the folkloric can pen a novella that straddles genres, writing techniques and figurative voices and tug at the heartstrings of both commonplace audiences and the most exigent of readers.
Such indisputable universality is what Steinbeck accomplished with “Of Mice and Men”, a fabled novella with a linear plot delivered in a succession of theatrical scenes, compact on the surface and with simply drawn characters that might be accused of being ex ...more
Such indisputable universality is what Steinbeck accomplished with “Of Mice and Men”, a fabled novella with a linear plot delivered in a succession of theatrical scenes, compact on the surface and with simply drawn characters that might be accused of being ex ...more

”We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.”
—John Steinbeck
Five mind-blown stars!
When I started Of Mice and Men, I wasn’t sure I’d chosen the right read. The dialogue really was not what I expected and Steinbeck’s straightforward prose cut straight to the core of the matter. However, I stuck with it and the reward blew my mind!
Set in 1930s California, the story follows two destitute men as they roam, taking work where it could be found. George and Lennie had ...more
—John Steinbeck
Five mind-blown stars!
When I started Of Mice and Men, I wasn’t sure I’d chosen the right read. The dialogue really was not what I expected and Steinbeck’s straightforward prose cut straight to the core of the matter. However, I stuck with it and the reward blew my mind!
Set in 1930s California, the story follows two destitute men as they roam, taking work where it could be found. George and Lennie had ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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Men? | 2 | 26 | Feb 21, 2022 07:34PM | |
Boekenroedel: Na het lezen | 12 | 24 | Dec 31, 2021 10:12AM | |
Boekenroedel: Voor het lezen | 12 | 29 | Dec 01, 2021 10:38PM | |
All About Books: July & August 2020 Classic Group Read - Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck | 27 | 77 | Jul 30, 2021 11:21AM |
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John Steinbeck III was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. In all, he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and several collections of short stories.
In 1962 Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley ...more
In 1962 Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley ...more
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“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
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“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's
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