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John Steinbeck
Archive 2023 Genre & Novelist
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2023 Reading John Steinbeck Throughout the Year
Steinbeck is a favorite of mine too. Here follows a lit of how I have rated his book. Pls keep in mind that I am very restrictive with my stars.Steinbeck’s books in order of preference :
*Of Mice and Men 5 stars
*The Grapes of Wrath 5 stars
*In Dubious Battle 4 stars
*The Wayward Bus 4 stars
*Travels with Charley: In Search of America 4 stars
*The Moon Is Down 4 stars
*The Pastures of Heaven 4 stars
*The Red Pony 4 stars
*Cannery Row 4 stars
*America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction 3 stars
*Once There Was a War 3 stars
*The Winter of Our Discontent 3 stars
*A Russian Journal 3 stars
*The Pearl 3 stars
*Sweet Thursday 2 stars
*To a God Unknown 2 stars
*East of Eden 2 stars
I have reviews of all of these, if you are interested in knowing the reasons for my ratings. They are in my bookshelves.
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You are well read with Steinbeck's works Chrissie. A nice accomplishment.
I like Steinbeck, so I could not stop reading him. I do think some books are etter than others though.
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I read The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden in my final year of high school. I remember very little about East of Eden on the whole, but The Grapes of Wrath has stayed with me all these years-it's such an outstanding book!
My Steinbeck's favourites were, so far, The Grapes of Wrath & To a God Unknown. By Four Stars were Travels with Charlie - The Pearl - Mice & Men. My least favourite (by three stars) was Cannery Row. But I like all of them.
East of Eden was one of my favorite reads from 2021. I took on The Grapes of Wrath this year, and liked it just as much, possibly more. I read Grapes for no particular reason, except that I was missing the Steinbeck experience and wanted it back.
Way back in high school I read Of Mice and Men but it was too long ago to remember much, except that it was sad and a little disturbing.
We do react differently! I think this has to do with our own personal experiences. Our experiences alter how we relate to small, small things in books that together influence our ratings. Then there is the prose style. People's preferences vary here too. I like simple and strong, not cluttered and wordy. Also character portrayal is an important element for me. I continually think about people's behavior, motivations and why they do what they do.
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Disturbing is a good word for the end. Understanding the why of it made me look at it a little differently. I think that came with reading it at an older age, not as a teenager.
Lesle wrote: "Kevin wrote: " I read Of Mice and Men but it was too long ago to remember much, except that it was sad and a little disturbing..."Disturbing is a good word for the end. Understanding the why of i..."
It is an exciting point of view. It happens to me somehow. Reading in older age.
Sandy wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Here it is, Sandy.https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/....."
Sandy, as Lesle points out, besides the 2022 year-long Steinbeck read in the thread Kathy posted, the group also read a Steinbeck novel a month during 2021 so there really will have been two years of Steinbeck at the end of the year.
The 2021 Archives Authors section contains the 12 threads for the 12 monthy Steinbeck reads during 2021. I'd post them here but I'm too lazy to do that, so here's the first three:
january-the-grapes-of-wrath https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
february-east-of-eden https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
march-in-dubious-battle https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
april-the-long-valley https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
may-the-harvest-gypsies https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
june-cannery-row/sweet-thursday https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
july-tortilla-flat https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
august-the-pearl https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
september-the-moon-is-down/once-there-was-a-war https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
october-the-wayward-bus/travels-with-charley https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
november-a-russian-journal https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
december-the-winter-of-our-discontent https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Oops, I ended up posting all 12 anyway as this busywork was more appealing than other forms of work
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Thank you Brian! I will also put a message about your list of past threads under message one.
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My hope is to read at least one book next year of Steinbeck's! Any one else thinking about reading one of his Novels or Short Story next year in your wish list?
Its always a pleasure to read or re-read Steinbeck, Lesle, so I think I'll follow you and include one of his novels in my reading plan for next year. I'll probably go for In Dubious Battle. Its a while since I read it, and it has some loose connection with American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921, which I'm reading at the moment.
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I'll try one of his novels, yes, or start sooner as possible.
The nice thing about Steinbeck is his variety of novel/novella lengths. Besides 'saga' length novels like Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and mid-size novels like In Dubious Battle, Sweet Thursday and The Wayward Bus, Steinbeck has these six classic short novellas that each can be read in 2 to 6 hours:Of Mice and Men
The Red Pony
The Pearl
The Moon Is Down
Tortilla Flat
Cannery Row
(the first four are close to 100 pages; the last two are closer to 200 pages)
And, as Piyangie mentons, Steinbeck has short stories, The Long Valley being a good collection.
So, while lack of interest may be a good reason not to read some Steinbeck, lack of time rarely is.
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Piyangie wrote: "Of the six shorter works you've mentioned Brian, the only one I haven't read is The Red Pony. So I might do that. With the soon to read The Grapes of Wrath, I feel I've ..."The Red Pony was one of the first books I was asigned to read in high school. That would have been the fall of 1967. So I first read The Red Pony 55 years ago.
I reread it sometime later in the 20th century. It's worth reading. While the 1949 movie verson is considered to be just so-so, I remember enjoying it.
I aim to read some more of his books, starting with The Wayward Bus which I got this week & plan to read very soon.
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Hopefully next year. I will save reading your review till than too!
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It is really not part of next year's plan other than like Brian has suggested there are many shorter stories that you might be able to fit in, with page count and approximate time to read!
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Hopefully next year. I will save reading your review till than too!"
I could have waited, had I not taken it up for a challenge with another group, Lesle. Yes, my reviews do have spoilers, so it's a wise resolution. :)
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Piyangie wrote: "I finally managed to start reading Grapes of Wrath. I feel this will be one sad story in the way Steinbeck creates the atmosphere."I’m so pleased, Piyangie. It was the first Steinbeck book that I read & I struggled with it, partly because I knew nothing about the background to the book. But after reading more of his work I read it again last year & appreciated it. I’m sure I’ll read it again some time.
I finished reading The Wayward Bus today. I enjoyed it & thought it was a clever story using a few characters throughout the whole book to ensure continuity while including other characters for shorter periods. It could have been a bit longer - I’m left wanting to know what happened to some characters after the end of the story. But perhaps it was a good decision to allow the reader to decide this for themselves.
The FX Movie Channel has shown the movie of The Wayward Bus on a few occasions lately. The next showing is at 11:00 a.m CDT on Thursday November 17th. It's the only time listed for a future showing.So if you get the FXM Channel, set your DVR for or watch live at:
11:00 a.m CDT on Thursday, November 17th on FXM to see the movie of The Wayward Bus
Brian E wrote: "The FX Movie Channel has shown the movie of The Wayward Bus on a few occasions lately. The next showing is at 11:00 a.m CDT on Thursday November 17th. It's the only time listed for a future showing..."Thanks, Brian. Perhaps this will be shown here some time too - I’m in the UK. I watched The Grapes of Wrath a while ago & enjoyed it, even though I was glad I read the book before seeing the film.
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John Steinbeck is still considered one of America's greatest writers and his books are regularly taught in American and British schools.
Do you have plans to fit one in - in 2023?
I'm still planning to re-read In Dubious Battle at some point next year. Normally, during Banned Books Week in September I try to read a book that is/was banned; I don't know if In Dubious Battle was ever banned, but Grapes of Wrath was banned in California at some point, so I might also re-read that in September.
I haven't any plans for any specific titles either, but I probably could fit one in during 2023.
I finished reading Once There Was a War which I read by the dates 79 years later. It was very tempting to read on on any given day but I resisted and enjoyed the gaps created imagining what it must've been like as a non-combatant waiting to hear the latest news.Next year I'll probably read more of Steinbeck's short stories but I also intend to read one of the longer novels, either The Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden.
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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How wonderful of you Sandy!
This will come in handy.
We do tend to enjoy Steinbeck for sure. When I listed the books for this years update on msg 1 I was surprised that there are some I had not heard of!
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No apologies necessary! Kudos instead!
Sandy wrote: "I’ve just re-read message 1 to refresh my memory (trying to make some semblance of a reading plan for 2023) and realize that I had completely forgotten about Brian’s list (message 115) of links for...My apologies for the duplication and also to Brian "Rosemarie wrote: "No apologies necessary! Kudos instead!"
Hey, I'll take the apology. While I'm used to people immediately forgetting what I have to say, as I did address Sandy in the earlier post, I do appreciate the apology, even if it's an unnecessary one.
Actually, its the recognition and not the apology that I appreciate. Sandy's list does improve on what I had posted by being both more extensive and better organized. So, yes, definitely Kudos for that!
Thanks, Sandy!
Sandy wrote: "No competition intended! 😊.."On your part, maybe, but as a sports loving male, I can make anything a competition. Nowadays, though, the competition is mostly with myself.
Reading is a main source of self-competition to me as I use Goodreads to track my pages and books read year-to-year, trying to read more each year and more in periods within that year. Even this group competes with itself on yearly page totals.
This competitive reading has some good results as I am enjoying my reading more, but it can cause some adverse behavior. Recently, in another GR group, we were reading two stories that did not have their own GR blurb. I got frustrated that I couldn't use them to add to my GR page and book totals for the year. Reading without getting Goodreads credit threw me off - it felt like it was only practice reading since it didn't count on the scoreboard. I'm still just getting over it and realized that I need to tone those competitive reading urges down or I'll start doing stupid things like avoiding reading something worthwhile merely because it won't count on Goodreads. Maybe meditation or yoga will help.
Brian E wrote: "Recently, in another GR group, we were reading two stories that did not have their own GR blurb. I got frustrated that I couldn't use them to add to my GR page and book totals for the year. ..."I suffered from that too Brian, my solution was to join the Goodreads Librarians so I could add books and edit books that had the wrong details. If you tell me the title, author, isbn and page count of those books I can add them for you.
Mike wrote: ".If you tell me the title, author, isbn and page count of those books I can add them for you.."There really is no book or ISBN number to add. The stories never appeared separately in book or Kindle form. I ended up printing off the stories from the Internet: one from a copy of an 1880 periodical that the story appeared in (by Mrs. Oliphant) and the other from an on-line copy of a book that had a compilation of the stories (by Mary Elizabeth Braddon)
And, if there were, its better for me to have to learn to read without GR credit - like auditing a college course.
But thanks for the offer, Mike. Now that I know you're a Librarian I know who to contact for those types of things.
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Lesle wrote: "Sounds like someone needs to "Add" those books to Goodreads Brian. You can do it yourself or ask one of our Librarians, we have several in our group!"That's good to know Lesle. I always used to add books myself and the process was fast and easy. GR then removed that option, and their replacement (I won't call it a process) is an almighty mess. Books can take months to get added, and in some cases I've just given up.
GR claim you can still add books yourself by submitting details in a csv file; I tried it a few times and they just vanished without trace.
Mike wrote: "Brian E wrote: "Recently, in another GR group, we were reading two stories that did not have their own GR blurb. I got frustrated that I couldn't use them to add to my GR page and book totals for t..."That was a good solution Mike - I'll look at joining GR Librarians too.
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I stopped totally doing it and ask a Librarian to help.
2023 Reading John Steinbeck Throughout the YearLove the idea! I have only read: "The Grapes of Wrath", "Of Mice and Men." and "Travels with Charley." They were all great reads! very memorable! I definitely want to join your challenge, and look forward to picking my next Steinbeck book. Any suggestions?
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Hello everyone …Just finished reading Cup of Gold … I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it … I thought it would be more of an adventure story, but actually it was a haunting character study of Sir Henry Morgan … Steinbeck’s ability to create memorable characters blazes bright in this novel …
Happy reading!
Bonita
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Sweet Thursday (other topics)Cannery Row (other topics)
Cannery Row (other topics)
Cannery Row (other topics)
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“The Affair at 7 Rue de M-,” originally published in 1955 in Harper’s Bazaar, and then reprinted ten years later in the pulpy Magazine of Horror, begins when an old family friend gifts the son of the Poe-like narrator some bubble gum. But—horror of horrors—the gum is animate, it’s living in some sub-communicative and evil way, and it chews the kid’s mouth against his will, so the narrator is forced to pin it to boards with ice picks and place it in bell jars, and, ultimately, bury it in the garden and plant geraniums atop it. Here’s the moment where the gum is revealed to be more-than:
I heard the unmistakable soft p l o p p i n g sound of a bursting balloon of bubble gum. I looked sternly at my offspring and saw him chewing away. His cheeks were colored with embarrassment and the muscles of his jaws stood rigidly out.
“You know the rule,” I said coldly.
To my amazement tears came into his eyes and while his jaws continued to masticate hugely, his blubbery voice forced its way past the huge lump of bubble gum in his mouth. “I didn’t do it!”
“What do you mean, you didn’t do it?” I demanded in a rage. “I distinctly heard and now I distinctly see.”
“Oh sir!” he moaned, “I really didn’t. I’m not chewing it, sir. It’s chewing me.”