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

Not his best

Like most Steinbeck it comments on the underbelly of society. It has plenty of dark aspects but is generally a story of folks with good hearts.

Very wonderful and beautiful

What a gem of a tale. So well written, at times I felt like I was there.

Uplifting

I read Of Mice and Men in highschool, and recently The Grapes of Wrath (read them) so I was prepared for another tale that went for the heart and this goes there, but not in the way you'd expect.

Exquisite use of language

Steinbeck is a master of description making the town of Cannery Row come alive as a full character. He is the king of the simile with each one vivid and surprising. They linger long after the story has ended, a photograph in the mind. Each character, animals included, is nuanced and full of complex humanity. I loved it.

Amazing Contrast, then and now

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, interesting story well written
everyday life

Would you be willing to try another book from John Steinbeck? Why or why not?

Yes, like his way of writing

What does Jerry Farden bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His immitations of characters gives feeling of being there

It's obvious when it's Steinbeck, it's outstanding

"Cannery row in Montaray, in California, is: a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery row is: the gathered and scattered ,tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honkey tonks, restaurants and whore houses and little crowded groceries, laboratories and flop houses. It's inhabitants are, as the man once said: whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches; by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peep-hole, he might have said: saints and angels and martyrs and holy men, and he would have meant the same thing." (from the preface, by Steinbeck)

Steinbeck knows hardship. He knows what is forged in the heart in the flames of tribulation. He knows goodness, knows badness. He captures situations, environments, events and the emotional effects of the combination of these that is life. Steinbeck has a specific style and it is consistent in each of his novels. It is obvious when it is a Steinbeck. This story, as always, is great.

(my other Steinbeck ratings: grapes of wrath- 5; of mice and men- 5; the pearl- 5; cannery row- 5; tortilla flat- 5)

I love Steinbeck! Loved the narration!

When I was a young child, I lived in a fishing village in the late '40's, and early '50's. There were canneries in our small village, and many of the people worked either on the boats, or in the canneries.

There was quite a community - something like that of Cannery Row.

We visited Monterey some years ago, and I enjoyed knowing that Steinbeck wrote about that area.

Enduring classic

In reviewing books like Cannery Row, considered classics, when I have liked them I have compared them to time machines, a book written in a time long gone within a culture made distant by time can have the ability to take us back to that time and place and allow us to live there with the characters and be a part of that culture. Cannery Row does this in a beautiful way, the people often eccentric, become alive and around us and we have the opportunity through this beautiful book to become part of a community that is no longer with us. It is wonderful to bring a book like this into our lives, we are better for it, we understand a place in the past and therefore understand some of the path we have traveled as a society, and see some of the things we have lost as well as gained.
The story revolves around the community called Cannery Row, and Steinbeck writes a colorful and beautiful story around it, it is funny, interesting, sad and totally engrossing.
Highly Recommended, you will be better for this story to be part of your life.

Not Steinbeck’s best

I am a fan of Steinbeck and have read a collection of his works and I felt disappointed by this one. This story felt hollow compared to In Dubious Battle or Of Mice and Men. Tortilla Flat has more of an interesting plot and it just follows a group of friends who drink jugs of cheap wine until they fall asleep.

2nd time around

I actually read this book when I was 13. My parents had divorced and shipped me off to live with my brother on the other side of the country who was an English major. I hadn’t thought much about the book until I was sitting at a Red Robin and saw a Beer Milkshake on the menu. It’s amazing how much I actually remembered about the book and it was fun to revisit it 20 years later. I’ve read a fair amount of books in my lifetime ( majored in Spanish Lit, worked in a library) but for some reason the details of this one have always stuck out. Maybe it was something about reading it at a turning point in my life or maybe Steinbeck’s story telling just sticks with you.