Try it again if you hated it in high school.

books:


	• The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) John Steinbeck Penguin (Non-Classics), 2002 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 588 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Audio Grapes of Wrath

I purchased this for my 17 year old daughter. She has a reading disability and they are reading it in her English class. It has been very helpful to her!

Try it again if you hated it in high school.

This book will make you look around with open eyes. I highly recommend reading this book, even if you hated it in high school. A person cannot appreciate hardship if you are a young adult that has everything you need, and a lot of times whatever you want. As an adult, I was able to absorb much more of the true meaning of this book. The Grapes of Wrath will change your way of thinking about what is truly important in life.

for more information click here

A reunion with old friends

I read Grapes of Wrath in my late teens, and just didn't get what all of the fanfare was about. I liked the characters, but I didn't fully appreciate what Steinbeck was trying to do.

Flash forward a few decades -- I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago, and read it in two sittings. I was completely captivated. Not only did the Joads come to life, but their circumstances, their defeats and their successes, resonated with realism. Rather than being relegated to the dusty "classics" shelf, this book is more relevant today. One can easily replace the Joads with immigrant farm workers in our current society, and get a glimpse of exactly how things don't change. Steinbeck nailed human frailty and bigotry, as well as the largess of the human spirit.

Read this book. Even if you walk away thinking, "What a bunch of lefty crud!" it will be worth your while. The story is heart-warming (and sometimes heartrending), and very real.

for more information click here

One of the Best Novels of All Time

For the last few years I've been on a quest to read the one hundred greatest books ever written. Unfortunately I've discovered that there doesn't seem to be any consensus as to which books deserve to be on that list. Out of the three lists I've come upon only two books were even listed more than once ("The Grapes of Wrath", and "Of Mice and Men" both by John Steinbeck), so I've been forced to read as many books as possible from all of the lists to try and compose my own.

Based on the listings I suspected the "The Grapes of Wrath" was going to be a special book so I wanted to own the hardback copy of it, but since it has been out of print for so long I finally broke down and just bought the paperback. Let me just say that this is one of the best novels ever written and certainly will make my final listing. It definitely was deserving of the Nobel prize it received.

Written in 1939 this book captures the story of the Joad family during the Great Depression when thousands of families left their farms in Oklahoma and moved out to California to try to improve their fortunes, only to find sorrow and death waiting for them there.

The story opens with Tom Joad being released from prison on parole for a charge of murder he committed in self defense. He returns home after being away for several years only to find his family packing up and moving away. The crops hadn't been good for several seasons and the banks were foreclosing on the loans. Small farmers were being squeezed out by the big corporations and people were forced to try to find a different profession.

When handbills arrive declaring that there was plenty of work out in California picking crops the people took it as a sign of hope. They sold most of their possessions, packed whatever was left up in a broken down truck and headed west on route 66.

The Joad Family consisting of fourteen people and friends plus one dog, along with all of their belongings set out for the trip in just one truck that they bought from a very charismatic salesman and had customized. (I'm sorry but this was one of the few things in the story I had a problem with, since I just couldn't picture it. I'm one of seven kids and the nine of us could never fit in a station wagon. How did fourteen people and a dog fit in one truck with all of our belongings?) There was Mr. and Mrs. Joad, Grandma and Grandpa Joad, Uncle John, Casy the former preacher, the boys Noah, Tom, Al, and little Winfield, and then there was the daughter Rosasharon (Rose of Sharon) who was pregnant along with her husband Connie, Rosasharon's younger sister Ruthie, plus the dog...

While home on the farm when there was work Mr. Joad and the men ran the family, but when they got out on the road without any work Mr. Joad became a lost without his purpose in life, and Mrs. Joad had to take over as the head of the family. She made all of the tough decisions on the road and showed her strength to keep everyone going. Uncle John is a dark soul who had never forgiven himself for not being able to do more for his wife when she got sick and died. He fluctuates in the novel between being a drunk and someone who gives away all of his possessions to the kids to try to make it up to the world. The oldest son Noah I believe is mentally challenged due to a birthing accident and is kind of lost with all of the changes. Tom who is the next oldest son represents justice and truth throughout the novel. Al is a tomcat who's always out looking for girls, but wants to settle down some day and be a mechanic. Rosasharon and Connie are a young couple who dream of owning their own home with a white picket fence and raising a family. Casy used to be a preacher but lost his belief in God. Out in California he discovers a new calling. The kids Winfield and Ruthie I believe just represent innocence.

Along the road they live day to day, dollar to dollar with the belief that all they need to do is get to California and they would find salvation. They meet many adversities along the road which they struggle to overcome. By working together and making some new friends they manage to survive. The whole country seems to be moving and change is in the air. Route 66 is perfectly described, from the truck stop restaurants, to the broken down gas stations, we are shown different levels of haves and have nots. The Joads do a little better job than some in maintaining their moral standards and beliefs but they see the road take it's toll on the people.

After many tragedies and tribulations they finally arrive in California only to find that they were mislead. California may be beautiful and the land fertile but it is all owned by greedy men, who don't want to share any of their wealth.

A great number of people have been lured out west in order to produce a cheap labor force to pick crops. With thousands of people fighting for just a few jobs they would accept lower wages just to keep from starving. The people tried to turn to the government for help only to find more greed and corruption. The government would only grant assistance to people who had been in the state for more than a year and the police were all either related to or paid off by the wealthy land owners who wanted to maintain the cheap labor force, so they kept the people moving so they couldn't obtain any lasting residency.

People were living in make shift homes on the edge of town called Hoovervilles (after Herbert Hoover, president 1929-1933), until the cops came and forced them out.

Even in desperation the people still tried to ban together to create their own rules and maintain their basic morals for what was acceptable, but they were being plagued on at every turn. They still acted as men, but you could see their tolerance reach critical levels.

Each chapter you could feel the tension rising as the people were beaten down and mistreated. It was hard to believe the level of cruelty. The rich were afraid of the poor people and thought they were going to take everything they owned so they treated them as less than human and gave them nothing. The poor could only turn to other poor people for help since no one else seemed to care. Throughout the book as the people reached a greater and greater level of desperation you wondered when they were going to break, but the human spirit seems to persevere.

After all that transpires you are just amazed at the ability of these people to keep fighting and go on, and that gives you a little bit of hope.

I'd highly recommend this book.

for more information click here

A moving story...

Lin Bentolila, a dear friend, gave me this book for my birthday 08 and I finally finished it and also saw the DVD movie version. Both gave me a rare view into a time in America that I knew little about. Published in 1939, the Grapes of Wrath is about the brutal and sad time people had to live... shall we say struggle through... and for the lucky some... survive during those days.

I learned that back then people entered into agricultural agreements where they did not own the land but were allowed by the owners to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced, and as times got really bad because of the lack of water, the "dust" storms and the inability to produce, they could no longer afford to pay the agreed share and were therefore, run from their land... even though they had worked it for over 70 years seeing many family generations come and go on the land which they called home...

How incredibly sad... simply horrible... The story centers on a family with the last name of Joads and it is so hopeless at times that I felt the pain and sorrow of these characters daring to hope for a better life.

Desperate times, children left without food and without care because parents earned miserable wages and had to go to find whatever work was available. Labor contracts were not respected, conditions were oppressive, and the spark of an attempt to correct the situation was seen as a crime and punished as such.

The emotions are deep and while the family undergoes many trials and desperate moments, they continue to have pride, human dignity, and the willingness to share whatever little they had. The road trip that takes them from their home in Oklahoma to California is at times exasperating because we suffer right along with these characters. The scenes at a road side diner where they buy bread... only able to pay for a 10 cent loaf is heart rendering and it is with a certain sense of trepidation that we realize that times in America today are again desperate for many. Never learning the great lessons from the past, we seem to repeat history over and over again, and between the housing market fiasco, the home foreclosures and the price of gas, let's hope we do not see Americans brought to another period of depression.

This is a must read and must see, while it is depressive, at times shocking, it poses fundamental questions of humanity. How can we live our lives in peace witnessing those who have so much and yet others not being able to eat? How do we ensure that our social systems protect our people from ever having to endure such harsh living conditions? At what point do we stop being human if we stand by and do nothing to change and bring opportunity and the right to work and earn a living to every person willing to work to make a living?

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Ten books that won't dissapoint.
Books that Made My Heart Stop!
Historical Fiction Bookshelf
1Favorite Books
favorite books

search for books
grapes of wrath, centennial, edition, grapes, wrath

Impressum / about us