Tag: John Steinbeck

Top Five Tuesday: Books with a Direction in the Title

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. You can see the Top 5 Tuesday topics for the whole of 2025 here. 

Today the topic is Books with a Direction in the Title. I’ve chosen books with north, south, east, up and down in their titles:

  1. The King in the North by Max Adams – Oswald of Northumbria was the first great English monarch, yet today this legendary figure is all but forgotten. In this panoramic portrait of Dark Age Britain, archaeologist and biographer Max Adams returns the king in the North to his rightful place in history.
  2. South Riding by Winifred Holtby – portraying life in the 1930s, one of the main characters is Sarah Burton, the new headmistress of Kiplington High School for Girls, a fiercely passionate and dedicated teacher.
  3. East of Eden by John Steinbeck – the story of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
  4. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel – the sequel to Wolf Hall. It’s 1535, Thomas Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn is the king’s new wife. But she has failed to give the king an heir and Henry falls for plain Jane Seymour. Cromwell must find a solution that will satisfy Henry, safeguard the nation and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge unscathed from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.
  5. The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin – a family saga chronicling the lives of a number of interconnected families over a period of thirty years.The story starts in 1903 in a North Country mining town, Sleescale, as its inhabitants experienced social and political upheaval. It ends in 1933. It highlights the terrible conditions in the coal mines, the lack of workers’ rights and the need for change in the relationship between the coal miners and the mine owners.

Top Five Tuesday:Top 5 books with an emotion in the title

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. For details of all of the latest prompts for January to March, see Meeghan’s post here.

Today the topic is Top 5 books with an emotion in the title. Whether it’s happy or sad, anger or excitement, any emotion is fine!

These are all books I’ve read with links to my reviews.

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West. Lady Slane is an ageing British aristocrat. Her husband has recently died at the age of 94, leaving his family with the problem of ‘What was to be done about Mother?’ The family are four sons and two daughters. Lady Slane at 88 is still a beautiful woman and quickly but quietly asserts her independence. She ignores her children and decides to live, with her maid Genoux, in a house in Hampstead that she had first seen thirty years previously. This is a novel of contrasts, beautifully written, and expressing so many emotions in a quiet unassuming manner.

A Climate of Fear by Fred Vargas, a Commissaire Adamsberg murder mystery. I like Adamsberg; he’s original, a thinker, who doesn’t like to express his feelings, but mulls things over. He’s an expert at untangling mysteries, an invaluable skill in this, one of the most complicated and intricate mysteries I’ve read. He’d compared the investigation right from the start to a huge tangled knot of seaweed. A woman is found bleeding to death in her bath, having apparently committed suicide, there’s a secretive society studying and re-enacting scenes from the French Revolution, and two deaths ten years earlier on an isolated island off the coast of Iceland, where the afturganga, the demon who owns the island summons people to their death.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck’s writing conjures up such vivid pictures and together with his use of dialect I really felt I was there in America in the 1930s travelling with the Joad family on their epic journey from Oklahoma to California. What a long, hard journey with such high hopes of a better life and what a tragedy when they arrived to find their dreams were shattered, their illusions destroyed and their hopes denied. Throughout the book, Steinbeck shows the inhumanity of man to man and also the dignity and compassion, the essential goodness and perseverance of individuals against such appalling conditions and inhumane treatment. 

Stone Cold Heart by Caz Frear, a police procedural written in the first person present tense narrated by DC Cat Kinsella who is part of the Murder Investigation Team 4. Naomi Lockhart, a young Australian woman was murdered and at first it looked as though her flatmate had killed her. It’s a most convoluted and tangled tale, filled with secrets and lies, most of which are complete red herrings.  Alongside the murder mystery, the book follows the story of DC Cat Kinsella’s family and the mystery surrounding Maryanne Doyle that was told in Sweet Little Lies – you really do need to read that book first to understand what is going on in her family life in this book. Cat is a conflicted character to say the least and although other readers have found her a warm and likeable character I found her one of the most irritating fictional detectives in crime fiction.

Cruel Acts by Jane Casey. A year ago, Leo Stone was convicted of murdering two women and sentenced to life in prison. Now he’s been freed on a technicality, and he’s protesting his innocence. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent are determined to put Stone back behind bars where he belongs, but the more Maeve digs, the less convinced she is that he did it. Then another woman disappears in similar circumstances. Is there a copycat killer, or have they been wrong about Stone from the start?

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Tortilla Flat was my Classics Club Spin book to read by 30th April. It was John Steinbeck’s fourth novel, first published in 1935. Tortilla Flat is on the hill high above Monterey, an old city on the coast of California. Monterey is also the setting for Cannery Row (the first of John Steinbeck’s novels that I read) and Sweet Thursday, both of which I enjoyed, so I was expecting this book to be just as good. And after a somewhat slow start I soon settled into the book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

As Steinbeck explained in his Preface this is the story of Danny and of Danny’s friends, Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, and Big Joe. Tortilla Flat is a collection of stories about their escapades, and their thoughts and endeavours. They are paisanos, being a mix of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and assorted Caucasian bloods, living in old wooden houses in the midst of pine trees. The stories have almost a mythical feel and indeed, Steinbeck compares Danny and his friends to the Knights of the Round Table.

It begins just after the end of the First World War, when they return to find that Danny has inherited two houses from his grandfather. He lives in one house and ‘rents’ the other to his friends, but they are all poor, do not work and never pay him, except in wine. They spend their days partying, drinking, sleeping, thieving or in jail. After a while Pirate joins them along with his five dogs who follow him everywhere. He’s the only paisano who works, making 25 cents a day selling kindling, but he doesn’t spend it, saving it and hiding it. But they don’t really care about money, they trade what they have or what they find for wine and then share it before sleeping it off.

Some of the stories are humorous, and some are tragic. I enjoyed them all. They stress the importance of home, friendship, and survival, giving an insight into their life in Tortilla Flat. And I loved the descriptions of the landscape:

In the morning when the sun was up clear of the pine trees, when the blue bay rippled and sparkled below them, they arose slowly and thoughtfully from their beds.

It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. when the glittery dew is on the mallow leaves, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning. (page 25)

And this passage:

They walked side by side along the dark beach toward Monterey, where the lights hung, necklace above necklace against the hill. The sand dunes crouched along the back of the beach like tired hounds, resting; and the waves gently practiced at striking, and hissed a little. (page 87)

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …

18

which for me is Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by 30 April 2023.

Synopsis from Amazon

Steinbeck’s first major critical and commercial success, TORTILLA FLAT is also his funniest novel. Danny is a paisano, descended from the original Spanish settlers who arrived in Monterey, California, centuries before. He values friendship above money and possessions, so that when he suddenly inherits two houses, Danny is quick to offer shelter to his fellow gentlemen of the road. Their love of freedom and scorn for material things draw them into daring and often hilarious adventures. Until Danny, tiring of his new responsibilities, suddenly disappears…

I’m pleased about this result as I’ve enjoyed reading other books by John Steinbeck – my favourite is Cannery Row. So I’m expecting this to be good – and hope I won’t be disappointed.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

What’s In a Name? Challenge Completed

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

WhatsinaName14

I’ve completed this year’s What’s In a Name? Challenge hosted by Andrea at The Carolina Book Nook. The challenge was to read a book in any format (hard copy, ebook, audio) with a title that fits in each category.

Here are the categories and the books I’ve read:

  • A precious stone/metal: Who Killed Ruby? by Camilla Way – a tense and emotional mystery.
  • A temperature:  Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves – the 7th Shetland murder mystery – the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress is found in the debris of a flood.
  • A month or day of the week: Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck – with eccentric and funny characters, wit, humour, irony and a touch of farce and surrealism.
  • A meal: The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies – historical fiction set in Ceylon in the 1920s.
  • Contains the word “girl” or “woman”:  The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea – historical fiction set in set in Iceland in 1686, a story of suspicion, love and violence.
  • Contains both the words “of” AND “and”: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – historical fiction set in Seattle, a bitter sweet story of commitment and enduring hope.

I enjoyed reading all of them and it is so hard to choose a favourite! So, it has to be a tie between Sweet Thursday and  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Sweet thursdayI read John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row five years ago. At the time I didn’t know he’d written a sequel – Sweet Thursday. So when I discovered it, as I’d loved Cannery Row I wanted to read it. Published in 1954, I think it’s just as good, set in Monterey on the California coast in the 1950s after the Second World War when the cannery had closed down.

‘Sweet Thursday’ is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday – one of those days that’s just bad from the start. But ‘Sweet Thursday’ is sunny and clear, a day when anything can happen.

I was delighted to find that there is just as much humour and generosity within its pages. Some of the same characters are still there, Mack, Hazel and friends who live in the Palace Flop-house (a dosshouse) and Doc too. There are some new characters, notably Suzy at the house called the Bear Flag, the local brothel. Dora who ran the Bear Flag had died and it has been taken over by her sister Fauna (previously known as Flora). Lee Chong had sold the grocery and it is now owned by a Mexican called Joseph and Mary Rivas.

I loved the opening of the Prologue:

One night Mack lay back on his bed in the Palace flop-house and he said, “I ain’t never been satisfied with that book Cannery Row, I would have went about it different.”

And after a while he rolled over and raised his head on his hand and he said, “I guess I’m just a critic. But if I ever come across the guy that wrote that book I could tell him a few things.”

Doc returned from the war to his laboratory, Western Biological Laboratories, now run down, covered in dust and mildew. He’d left Old Jingleballicks, in charge and he’d neglected it. But his heart is now longer in his work and the ‘worm of discontent‘ is gnawing at him – he feels a failure.

Whisky lost its sharp delight and the first long pull of beer from a frosty glass was not the joy it had been. He stopped listening in the middle of an extended story. He was not genuinely glad to see a friend …

What am I thinking? What do I want? Where do I want to go? There would be wonder in him, and a little impatience, as though he stood outside and looked in on himself through a glass shell …

Doc thought he was alone in his discontent, but he was not. Everyone on the Row observed him and worried about him. Mack and the boys worried about him. And Mack said to Fauna, “Doc acts like a guy that needs a dame.”

So they decide that Suzy is the answer. But Suzy, an independent spirit who isn’t much good as a hustler, doesn’t think she’s good enough for Doc. The schemes for getting the two of them together seem doomed from the start, ending in a disastrous party, when all Mack and Fauna’s good intentions seem to backfire. But this is not a tragedy, although at times it has touches of melancholy. Hazel, one of my favourite characters in the book, takes matters into his own hands. Although he appears to be slow and stupid, his problem is not that he lacks intelligence, but is that of inattention, as he just watches life go by. After the party he put his mind to thinking about what had gone wrong. And then he goes on a Quest …

Mack, in the Prologue, sums up for me what I like in a book. After saying that he likes to have a couple of words at the top of each chapter that tells what the chapter is about he says:

‘Well, I like a lot of talk in a book, and I don’t like nobody to tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. and another thing – I kind of like to figure out what the guy’s thinking by what he says. I like some description too,’ he went on. ‘I like to know what colour a thing is, how it smells and how it looks, and maybe how a guy feels about it – but not too much of that.’

This is what you get in Sweet Thursday, great dialogue, great sense of location, eccentric and funny characters, wit, humour, irony and a touch of farce and surrealism, along with plenty of philosophy. I loved it.

This was my Classics Club Spin book for May, but I was late finishing it! It’s also one of my TBRs and a book that qualifies for the What’s In a Name challenge.