The Short Novels of John Steinbeck

Also wondering which you guys would recommend I read next. I finished East of Eden a while ago and couldn't have loved it more. I've read Grapes of Wrath and Winter of Our Discontent, but neither swept me away like Eden.

I reckon I've read four of these, though The Pearl and The Red Pony were when I was little so I remember exciting stories but not much else. Between Of Mice And Men and Cannery Row, I think I'd go with the latter. It seems more vivid, though the former would be more moving - not sure why 'vivid' should be the determinator, but it feels right.

I haven't read East Of Eden, I couldn't make a recommendation.

have only read 'mice and men,' but reading the descriptions i think 'tortilla flat' sounds most promising.

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I've read four of these. Tortilla Flat is the most fun and a deserving choice. Cannery Row is rougher and has a bit of a mean streak. The Moon is Down was Steinbeck's stab at a WWII novel and is no great shakes.

I voted Of Mice and Men, even though it's been force fed to a generation of US high school sophomores. Back when it was fresh and new and not an object of parody it very nearly arrived at something simple, true and tragic, that could withstand parody. That it fell a bit short of that shouldn't obscure the achievement.

read both OMAM and The Pearl in ninth grade. Still remember the Indian fellow in the latter grinding the scorpion that stung his baby into a paste.

this thread left out the short reign of pippin iv, a totally weird novel that is really out of place in his bibliography. i forget if i liked it or not.

tortilla flat, cause it's such fun; would probably vote cannery row on merit if I could think of it without guilt at not having read sweet thursday, it being an available pleasure I haven't availed myself of. nothing is like EoE afaik but read cannery row, Evan; thematically there's nothingsimilar but its characters are memorable & true, albeit not biblically so.

p sure voting on book synopses is one of the original sins, gotta suggest a tempban for j.d.

Cool; it's between Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat, then. I'll almost certainly read both, it's just a matter of which I get around to first.

It wasn't the biblicalness of the characters that grabbed me with East of Eden, it was just how lovingly drawn they all were. There were long stretches in that book where characters who hardly ever saw each other would catch up, and chat about big questions over a shared bottle. It was really earned and beautiful. Some of the other Steinbeck I've read had the same chattiness, but the affection wasn't quite there.

I just read East of Eden, and I liked the writing style but I found the heavy-handedness a little irritating. I really liked Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men.

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So yeah, Cannery Row. Wonderful.

And now I am reading Cannery Row's lovely sequel, Sweet Thursday. Equally wonderful. I run so hot and cold on Steinbeck, but when his work clicks with me there's nothing better

The Red Pony is such a dickmove of a kids' book