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More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.
In his first novel to follow the publication of his enormous success, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's vision comes wonderfully to life in this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California's back roads, transporting the lost and the lonely, the good and the greedy, the stupid and the scheming, the beautiful and the vicious away from their shattered dreams and, possibly, toward the promise of the future. This edition features an introduction by Gary Scharnhorst.
In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American."
This 1936 novel—set in the California apple country—portrays a strike by migrant workers that metamorphoses from principled defiance into blind fanaticism.
"Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat." This compelling, dignified and moving novel was inspired by and based upon the Nazi invasion of neutral Norway. Set in an imaginary European mining town, it shows what happens when a ruthless totalitarian power is up against an occupied democracy with an overwhelming desire to be free.
Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a Camelot on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur’s castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging—men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil and civil rectitude.
More than three decades after his death, John Steinbeck remains one of the nation's most beloved authors. Yet few know of his career as a journalist who covered world events from the Great Depression to Vietnam. Now, this original collection offers a portrait of the artist as citizen, deeply engaged in the world around him. In addition to the complete text of Steinbeck's last published book, America and Americans, this volume brings together for the first time more than 50 of Steinbeck's finest essays and jouralistic pieces.
In his first novel to follow the publication of his enormous success, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's vision comes wonderfully to life in this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California's back roads, transporting the lost and the lonely, the good and the greedy, the stupid and the scheming, the beautiful and the vicious away from their shattered dreams and, possibly, toward the promise of the future. This edition features an introduction by Gary Scharnhorst.
In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American."
This 1936 novel—set in the California apple country—portrays a strike by migrant workers that metamorphoses from principled defiance into blind fanaticism.
"Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat." This compelling, dignified and moving novel was inspired by and based upon the Nazi invasion of neutral Norway. Set in an imaginary European mining town, it shows what happens when a ruthless totalitarian power is up against an occupied democracy with an overwhelming desire to be free.
Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a Camelot on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur’s castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging—men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil and civil rectitude.
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.
Steinbeck and Capa's account of their journey through Cold War Russia is a classic piece of reportage and travel writing.Just after the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune.
Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.
Today, nearly 40 years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. We have begun publishing his many works for the first time as Penguin Classics. This season we continue with the seven spectacular and influential books East of Eden, Cannery Row, In Dubious Battle, The Long Valley, The Moon Is Down, The Pastures of Heaven, and Tortilla Flat.
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
At once naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath is perhaps the most American of American classics. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation during the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, who are forced to travel west to the promised land of California.
On the heels of the enormous success of his masterwork The Grapes of Wrath, and at the height of the American war effort, John Steinbeck, one of the most prolific and influential literary figures of his generation, wrote Bombs Away, a nonfiction account of his experiences with US Army Air Force bomber crews during World War II. Now, for the first time since its original publication in 1942, Penguin Classics presents this exclusive edition of Steinbeck's introduction to the then-nascent US Army Air Force and its bomber crew.
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts. Drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, it is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.
Raised on a ranch in northern California, Jody is well-schooled in the hard work and demands of a rancher's life. He is used to the way of horses, too; but nothing has prepared him for the special connection he will forge with Gabilan, the hot-tempered pony his father gives him. With Billy Buck, the hired hand, Jody tends and trains his horse, restlessly anticipating the moment he will sit high upon Gabilan's saddle. But when Gabilan falls ill, Jody discovers there are still lessons he must learn about the ways of nature and, particularly, the ways of man.
From the mid-1650s through the 1660s, Henry Morgan, a pirate and outlaw of legendary viciousness, ruled the Spanish Main. He ravaged the coasts of Cuba and America, striking terror wherever he went. Morgan was obsessive. He had two driving ambitions: to possess the beautiful woman called La Santa Roja and to conquer Panama, the "cup of gold".
In 1937, Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight", For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Nobel laureate John Steinbeck's bracing from-the-frontlines account of World War II - now with a new introduction.
In 1943 John Steinbeck was on assignment for The New York Herald Tribune, writing from Italy and North Africa, and from England in the midst of the London blitz. In his dispatches he focuses on the human-scale effect of the war, portraying everyone from the guys in a bomber crew to Bob Hope on his USO tour and even fighting alongside soldiers behind enemy lines. Taken together, these writings create an indelible portrait of life in wartime.
I have read many war biographies and accounts of WWII, including Churchill's, but none come close to bringing WWII to life like this book does. Although stripped of specific details by the censors, the stories lose nothing from the omissions for Steinbeck has done a masterful job of reaching deep into the lives of the men and women of the allied forces and giving them expression that is pure gold. I have lived as an infantry soldier and these words ring so true and deep that one wishes there were volumes of these stories somewhere. Although Ken Burns did much of this for the Civil War, the main difference is that Steinbeck brings his deep understanding and empathy for the common person to the description of events. You will not be disappointed, even if you do not care much for Steinbeck's other works.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
Worthy of your time. A look at the war through the eyes of a true observers of the world.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Over the past two months while reading classics as part of a personal challenge I have fallen in love with the prose of John Steinbeck. Now I intend to find and read everything he wrote! This is my first read of one of his nonfiction books, and my first review of less than 5 stars. However, if there were half stars I would certainly give this one a solid 4.5 stars!
These stories come from John's experiences as a war correspondent during WWII in England, Italy and northern Africa. The beauty of the stories is the way John writes about each soldier with love and respect. He tries to tell the story of their humanity and frailty. This book will not teach you a great deal about WWII unless you know very little, but it will give you insight into the individual men who touched John while he served. He writes with humor, frankness, admiration and love. He has a true empathy for these men, and it is palpable as you read this little book.
LLoyd James was very good -- but I missed Gary Sinise who was so good that I felt like he embodied John Steinbeck.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of Once There Was a War to be better than the print version?
I have been on a Jon Steinbeck kick and I loved this. His everyday details about the reality and sometimes the every day heros of war is illuminating and very down to earth.
Have you listened to any of Lloyd James’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no but he was great
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
don't have to you can read it in segments which is great
This collection has got to be my most cherished book from audible. There's so much here that resonates with this Soldier that I can't believe that the sentiments are not from the current conflicts. Steinbeck captures what no others have. The easily unnoticed details of everyday life that seem so arbitrary are written so beautifully that one gets lost in the miasma of war to follow the floating butterfly.
Although I didn't cry, I could feel Steinbeck reaching out and gently massaging my emotions; he made me laugh and caused a soul stirring tremor. Each story is short, but flows as one aspect of one life during one battle. Yet, he covers London through the Mediterranean an often forgotten portion of World War II brilliantly.
Regarding the narration: mellifluous prose that brings Steinbeck to life. Lloyd James did well with this one. He narrates several Heinlein books, including my favorite - Starship Troopers - and I couldn't help but feel as if Steinbeck, Heinlein, and James were all locked in a room and created both of these books concurrently. I've listened to other Heinlein books narrated by James and have listened to several of Steinbeck's by different voices, but the two aforementioned are so a like that if one didn't know the backstory of either, it would seem as if they were each parts of a magnum opus. Steinbeck's stories are so similar to the philosophy that Heinlein analogously portrays through Juan Ricco.
I normally listen at 3x speed and had no problems with this one. The audio is crisp and without editing errors that are saturated in Lloyd James' narration of Starship Troopers.
Highly recommend this book, especially if you're or were a Soldier.
Would you recommend Once There Was a War to your friends? Why or why not?
Probably not when compared to some of the other ones i have listened to.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
no
Any additional comments?
a little disappointing..it would be impossible to follow up some of his more notable titles.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
The introduction spoiled some of the stories, as it was the first time reading this book. However, if you are desperate for decent Steinbeck material this will fit the bill.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful