Cannery Row

By: John Steinbeck

Narrated by: Jerry Farden

Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Here is Steinbeck’s tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society, dependent 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, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, 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 most poignant works.

Public Domain (P)2011 Penguin

Critic reviews

Winner of the 2012 Fifty Books/Fifty Covers show, organized by Design Observer in association with AIGA and Designers & Books

Winner of the 2014 Type Directors Club Communication Design Award

One of the Best Stories Ever Written

The first time I read Cannery Row was in junior college in the early 60's. I have always loved the characters and the flow of the story. Having lived in Monterey, California, for some time, I always felt a part of the story. Hearing it performed was very different than the voices that I conjured up when I read it to myself. Not worse, not better - just very different. For that reason alone I would recommend it very highly to anyone who likes the story. Perhaps it is like drinking good beer from an ice cold mug rather than the bottle.

Deliciously written

Listened to this little book I loved in print a long time ago. Loved hearing it. This reader is wonderful; doesn’t get in the way or distract from the story or writing. Want to listen again to the great crux of it torward the end that I feel I should understand more. Ahh.

Cannery Row

Greatly enjoyed the story and the reader was excellent. I have read a number of Steinbeck’s works and appreciate them all. Highly recommend.

A great story

I've listen to this story many times and still carried away by the authors intertwining of language and philosophy.

Reminds me of my dad

I loved the tough & tumble stories! The resourcefulness of the characters reminds me of some of the adventures my dad would tell of his wild youth during the depression.

great classic

loved the book this was a great American classic. must read/ listen to. funny sad happy insightful.

I love Steinbeck

I always get lost in the characters in Steinbeck's stories, then I fall in deep love!

Examination of the Human Struggle

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck, narrated by Jerry Farden. I have always thought of Steinbeck as an author who practiced his writing style and therein one who evolved into the magnificent novels Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and The Pearl. I was wrong. Of Mice and Grapes came early in his repertoire; East of Eden and The Pearl, in the early years of the last one-third of his career. He was just in the habit of creating different types of literary structures to entertain himself. His writings are about everyday man; told in Victorian style flowering language.

Cannery Row is not so much a novel, more so as a poem written in prose. The novel – the experience - takes place in his beloved Monterrey Peninsula, and tells the story of a pack of grifters who live life at the lowest of levels of productivity, are more losers than winners and who seem to always do wrong in any endeavor. Thrown into the story is an oriental grocery store merchant, the women from a business of ill repute and a biologist; that last person being the central factor in the tale. Yes, the biologist seems to be and is an anachronist in the story. But a beloved out of place factor and in attempting to deliver that love, the others stumble and bumble and that is the story told in the most beautiful of retells.

No bang for the buck in the story; but deep entrance into the human struggle. Which is the definition of a Steinbeck work of art.

An Extremely Well Read Performance

Cannery Row is a short novel by John Steinbeck. The story is interesting, mostly an amusing series of vignettes.

This particular reading is excellent. Jerry Farden, the narrator, was excellent. I read along while listening. I did find one, very short, inexplicable discrepancy in Chapter 13 that occurs while Hazel is cooking a chicken. It really does not change the story.

Prerequisite For Life Itself

We read and discussed this book in high school, but I was not malleable enough to appreciate one of the last great writers of an Era, long gone while serving my country. The years 69-73 were intense and focused, so time was a valuable commodity. You tear yourself away from a group of people in the book whom everyone knows.
A must read.