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

Wonderful narration of a classic .

The narrator brought this book to life in a way that was extraordinary.. highly recommended.

Eternal light Steinbeck captures the Journey

From central Asia on Hamilton's Celtic horses we ride to Doc s party. Campbell's Star wars plays later as we eat canned sardines and look for nothing. This search for community needs eternal light and this story goes fishing for a higher life. Read the book and laugh with you friends. Keep smiling. MM

Good book

Had to read for school, very good. You can definitely tell this is classic John Steinbeck.

Loved the Audible version of this classic book

Jerry Farden brought all Steinbeck's salty characters to life in this classic novel, Cannery Row.

A Classic

My review is on Goodreads. This is one of Steinbeck's several Great American Novels. Most writers would be very content to complete just one.

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.