John Steinbeck, Peter Lisca, Kevin Hearle - The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002)

The Bottom Line: Epic in scope, intimate in detail, harrowing in tone, one of the most beautifully written novels ever, and arguably the best ever written by an American.

Review: Ask which is THE single greatest American novel, and you can count on the usual meritorious suspects:

?Moby Dick? by Herman Melville is the usual favorite. Some might go for ?Tom Sawyer? or ?Huckleberry Finn? by Mark Twain, or else...

The Bottom Line: Steinbeck finally received a Pulitzer mainly for this novel before he died. I've also enjoyed and reviewed his novella The Pearl.

Review: I've never before read a novel like John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, and I doubt I will again. It's not that its staggering story has lost its relevance today because it and its writer are still widely...

Review: I read The Grapes of Wrath a week ago. I picked up the book out of boredom, not knowing that it would change my whole outlook on life and the suffering and strengths of others. In this novel Steinbeck painted a portrait of humanity in a way that...

Review: We are told that God helps those who help themselves. Had the Joad family not been so busy trying to stay alive, they might have taken exception.

The Joads, one of thousands of families forced off their land by the Dust Bowl, try to play by...

The Bottom Line: This book is absolutely phenomenal. Just make sure you can handle it.

Review: The Grapes of Wrath is an absolutely amazing book by John Steinback. It is overflowing with symbolism, and it extracts a lot of emotion from the reader. The book is organized so that the chapters switch from a world-wide view of life during the...

Review: This book without a doubt should be read by everyone. In high school, college, and one more time later in life so it can be fully appreciated. An indictment of the exploitation of the poor migrant workers this book is incredibly written. The book...

Review: This book is a classic masterpiece of american history. It is highly accurate accounting of the depression period, and the hardships of the Midwest families who lost it all to the banks and were forced to move to California "Beverly hillbilly"...

Review: This book is considered to be one of the best books written in American history, capturing the turmoil of a people and a generation, in the simplistic and clean way only John Steinbeck could. I'm not John Steinbeck's biggest fan, and I often feel...

The Bottom Line: Read something else. Anything else.

Review: I had hopes for a solid literary experience when I picked up Grapes of Wrath. In retrospect, I suppose it?s ironic that I did. The entirety of the book revolves around a hokey dull-witted Oklahoma family, and their misadventures across the...

Review: Imagine you have lived for generations on a small plot of land. Farming it year after year.. except one year your crop is bad.. then another so you take out a loan against the land. But the plague keeps on continuing and before you know it there are...