Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Forced from their home, the Joad family is lured to California to find work; instead they find disillusionment, exploitation, and hunger.

Today, nearly forty 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 blackspine Penguin Classics featuring eye-catching, newly commissioned art. This season we continue with the seven spectacular and influential books East of Eden, Cannery Row, In Dubious Battle, The Long... (more)

The Search for Bobby McGee

by Betty Dravis

In the 1970s my daughters often danced around the house to the strains of "Me and Bobby McGee,“ the famous song by the late Janis Joplin. Even though, in the '50s, I had been "star-struck" by Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth, and others, it still amuses me that people nowadays are almost morbidly obsessed with celebrities. Recently, I overheard some "Baby Boomers" discussing Bobby McGee, wondering if he were a real... (more)

Steinbeck's Ghost

by Lewis Buzbee

It’s been two months since Travis’s family moved to a development so new that it seems totally unreal. His parents are working harder now, to pay for it all, and Travis is left to fend for himself. There’s one place, though, where Travis can still connect with his old life: the Salinas library. Travis and his family used to go there together every Saturday, but now he bikes to it alone, re-reading his favorite... (more)

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The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

The Search for Bobby McGee

by Betty Dravis

Steinbeck's Ghost

by Lewis Buzbee