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Gathers interviews with Steinbeck from each period in his career and offers a brief profile on his life and accomplishments.
John Steinbeck is a towering figure in twentieth-century American literature; yet he remains one of our least understood writers. This major reevaluation of Steinbeck by Gavin Jones uncovers a timely thinker who confronted the fate of humanity as a species facing climate change, environmental crisis, and a growing divide between the powerful and the marginalized. Driven by insatiable curiosity, Steinbeck's work crossed a variety of borders – between the United States and the Global South, between human and nonhuman lifeforms, between science and the arts, and between literature and film – to explore the transformations in consciousness necessary for our survival on a precarious planet. Always seeking new forms to express his ecological and social vision of human interconnectedness and vulnerability, Steinbeck is a writer of urgent concern for the twenty-first century, even as he was haunted by the legacies of racism and injustice in the American West.
An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers A Penguin Classic In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante. His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York. Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life—a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South—which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand—Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade. This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by Jay Parini. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Winner of the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2020 in Nonfiction A resonant biography of America’s most celebrated novelist of the Great Depression. The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Pulitzer Prize finalist William Souder explores Steinbeck’s long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California’s limitless bounty, fascinated by the guileless decency of the downtrodden denizens of Cannery Row, and appalled by the country’s refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice—paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy—setting him apart from the writers of the so-called "lost generation." A man by turns quick-tempered, compassionate, and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck could be a difficult person to like. Obsessed with privacy, he was mistrustful of people. Next to writing, his favorite things were drinking and womanizing and getting married, which he did three times. And while he claimed indifference about success, his mid-career books and movie deals made him a lot of money—which passed through his hands as quickly as it came in. And yet Steinbeck also took aim at the corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality, and the urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive public debate to this day. Steinbeck remains our great social realist novelist, the writer who gave the dispossessed and the disenfranchised a voice in American life and letters. Eloquent, nuanced, and deeply researched, Mad at the World captures the full measure of the man and his work.
Conversations with Jim Harrison, Revised and Updated offers a judicious selection of interviews spanning the writing career of Jim Harrison (1937–2016) from its beginnings in the 1960s to the last interview he gave weeks before his death in March 2016. Harrison labeled himself and lived as a “quadra-schizoid” writer. He worked in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and screenwriting, and he published more than forty books that attracted an international following. These interviews supply a lively narrative of his progress as a major contemporary American author. This collection showcases Harrison's pet peeves, his candor and humility, his sense of humor, and his patience. He does not shy from his authorial obsessions, especially his efforts to hone the novella, for which he is considered a contemporary master, or the frequency with which he defied polite narrative conventions and created memorable, resolute female characters. Each conversation attests to the depth and range of Harrison’s considerable intellectual and political preoccupations, his fierce social and ecological conscience, his aesthetic beliefs, and his stylistic orientations in poetry and prose.
In Conversations with James Thurber this remarkable man who has been called America¿s twentieth-century Mark Twain and who was one of the great talkers of his time expresses his opinions on just about everything and recounts stories and anecdotes about his life which provided the basis for much of his humor writing. These entertaining interviews, conducted by Arthur Miller, Harvey Breit, George Plimpton, Arthur Gelb, and others, span twenty-two years, from 1939--1961. In them Thurber recalls his youth in Columbus, Ohio, his struggles as a student at Ohio State University, and his days of literary and journalistic apprenticeship in Europe as a code clerk and newspaperman who had to recreate entire stories from a few words of coded copy provided by the wire service. He tells too of his early days in New York City when he joined the staff of The New Yorker, of the origins of his drawings, of the pleasures that word games and mental puzzles gave him, and of his increasing blindness and its effect on his work and his perception of the world. As a man who like to express his opinions and to have an audience, Thurber enjoyed interviews and rarely refused to grant them. With the interview format he became so skilled that he perfected the interview-monologue into a Thurberesque art form, the oral equivalent of the autobiographical essay that he refined in his prose.
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick! • A bighearted novel with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology. For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe: "The Iliad meets Friday Night Lights in this muscular, captivating debut" (Oprah Daily). The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down. An expansive tour de force, Olympus, Texas cleverly weaves elements of classical mythology into a thoroughly modern family saga, rich in drama and psychological complexity. After all, at some point, don't we all wonder: What good is this destructive force we call love?
“A fast-paced debut… A candid, modern take on polyamory for fans of memoirs and graphic novels, and anyone interested in stories of dating, love, and romance.” —Library Journal After trying for years to emulate her boomer parents’ forty-year and still-going-strong marriage, Sophie realized that maybe the love she was looking for was down a road less traveled. In this bold, graphic memoir, she explores her sexuality, her values, and the versions of love our society accepts and practices. Along the way, she shares what it’s like to play on Tinder side-by-side with your boyfriend, encounter—and surmount—many types of jealousy, learn the power of female friendship, and other amazing things that happened when she stopped looking for “the one.” In a lot of ways, Many Love is Sophie’s love letter to everyone she has ever cared for. Witty, insightful, and complete with illustrations, this debut provides a memorable glimpse into an unconventional life.
Steinbeck's tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society, dependant on one another for both physical and emotional survival Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, including longtime friend Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Dora, Mack and his boys, Lee Chong, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and poignant works. In her introduction, Susan Shillinglaw shows how the novel expresses, both in style and theme, much that is essentially Steinbeck: “scientific detachment, empathy toward the lonely and depressed…and, at the darkest level…the terror of isolation and nothingness.” For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. From the Trade Paperback edition.
It's 1942. The novelist John Steinbeck needs character witnesses to sign his application to carry a gun in New York. He's received a threatening phone call and feels the need for self-protection. He's a relative newcomer to the Empire State - most of his close friends live back in California, so finding people to sign could be difficult for the controversial author. Feeling time is of the essence, he begins his search for character witnesses in the idyllic village of Palisades, where he makes his home. The Application is one of sixteen tales in Steinbeck: The Untold Stories examining the emotional and psychological toll extracted for writing the truth as Steinbeck saw it, in works such as Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. From his days in Salinas and Los Gatos and Pacific Grove on California's Monterey Peninsula to his later years in New York, we meet the people who were important in his life as well as the dark specters of those who opposed him and what he was writing. The stories look at his friends and contemporaries and those who outlived him. Henry, for instance, a boyhood pal who decades later sees John again in a visit to Henry's Salinas service station under cover of darkness. Or Lily, an old high school classmate who invites him to an impromptu reunion that turns dangerous for John and the other participants gathered in a park. Artists, too, were important in his world. The young couple he gave money to so they could explore Mexico and "learn to paint out loud." The painter, a giant of a man, who on a summer night carried Steinbeck out of his home after an argument on labor issues. The famous film actress who accompanies him on a nervous drive, from Los Angeles up the Salinas Valley in the light of day. There were those who had little or no contact with him but were influenced and moved by his work. Beau, a charismatic chainsmoking cowboy who proudly felt he inspired the creation of a Steinbeck character. The terminally ill book collector Paul, who finds temporary escape from his worries and responsibilities by searching for Steinbeck first editions. The wanderer Bill who arrives in Monterey and is befriended by those who knew Steinbeck and instruct him in the legacy. Or the gentle woman who looks back seventy years recalling her famous marine biologist father's relationship with the writer - as well as with his own children. These and other stories are further brought to life by the gritty, character-driven illustrations of artist C. Kline. Images such as John's mother Olive gathering flowers while remembering a sad day in her youth. A young sailor off an aircraft carrier drinking with two American strangers in a Greek bar while a political coup is underway. A Big Sur trapper tearfully parting with a mountain lion named Flora. Or the writer explaining to a ghost he has no home and never did. These stories and characters provide pathos and humor to the portrait of a great writer dealing with his memories and fears. And - as Steinbeck once described it in a letter to a friend - the powerful desire to begin again and return to the ocean tide pools and star-gazing of his youth.