John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born in the farming town of Salinas, California on February 27, 1902. His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, was not a terribly successful man; at one time or another he was the manager of a Sperry flour plant, the owner of a feed and grain store; the treasurer of Monterey County. His mother, the strong-willed Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, was a former teacher. As a child growing up in the fertile Salinas Valley-called the "Salad Bowl of the Nation"-Steinbeck formed a deep appreciation of his environment, not only the rich fields and hills surrounding Salinas, but also the nearby Pacific coast where his family spent summer weekends. "I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers," he wrote in the opening chapter of East of Eden. [Read more]

The Grapes of Wrath
Bantam Books, 1946 (PhP 70.00)
The way of life it describes is no more, but the book still lives on, as it always will--the epic chronicle of man's struggle against injustice and inhumanity. With the passage of the years, the story it tells of the Joads and their journey to "the golden land" is not so much just the story of one family and one time, but the story of the courage and passion of all men throughout history.