John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath during an astonishing burst of activity between June and October of 1938. Throughout the time he was creating his greatest work, Steinbeck faithfully kept a journal revealing his arduous journey toward its completion. The journal, like the novel it chronicles, tells a tale of dramatic proportions—of dogged determination and inspiration, yet also of paranoia, self-doubt, and obstacles. It records in intimate detail the conception and genesis of The Grapes of Wrath and its huge though controversial success. It is a unique and penetrating portrait of an emblematic American writer creating an essential American masterpiece.
Enjoy this steamy cowboy series at a terrific discount! Long Valley in Love is the bundle of the second set of four books in the sexy Cowboy of Long Valley Romance series. Come on down to small-town Idaho, where the cowboys are damn fine… Christmas of Love (Book 5) – This December, Ivy wishes she could just skip all the festivities. Parties? No thanks. Getting together with family? Not even. Mistletoe? Let’s not go there. But everything changes when she meets a rugged cowboy with a slow, sexy smile. Austin’s kiss melts her heart, but can two people with painful secrets have a chance at happily ever after? Overdue for Love (Book 6) – Dawson was traveling through Long Valley when a stop at a diner revealed a secret he’d never expected: A boy who looked just like him, and an ex-girlfriend who’d been hiding out in the mountains of Idaho… Bundle of Love (Book 7) – As the town’s vet and the director of an equine therapy camp, Adam’s life is plenty stressful, and plenty lonesome. Then in strolls Kylie VanLueven, his very new and very pretty receptionist, with curves in all the right places. She's doing a good job at the clinic, but he won’t ever let it be more than that, despite the longing she stirs in him. Besides, he’s sure that she’s hiding a secret… Lessons in Love (Book 8) – Elijah hasn’t exactly made stellar choices in life, but the one thing he’s never regretted? His daughter, even if his ex-wife is doing all she can to keep them apart. In the midst of their custody battle, something unexpected happens: He begins to fall in love. Everyone knows your daughter’s elementary school teacher is off-limits, but someone forgot to tell Elijah’s heart… Long Valley in Love is a collection of the second set of four novels in the Cowboys of Long Valley Romance world. For fans of Elle Thorpe, J.P. Comeau, or Katie Mettner, this is a HOT romantic box set with four guaranteed happily ever afters. It does contain some strong language and oh my, sexy times. Enjoy!
An intimate, eye-opening portrait of San Francisco transformed by the tech boom. San Francisco is changing at warp speed. Famously home to artists and activists, and known as the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the LGBTQ movement, in recent decades the Bay Area has been reshaped by Silicon Valley, the engine of the new American economy. The richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes, and cracks in the city’s facade—rapid gentrification, an epidemic of evictions, rising crime, atrophied public institutions—have started to show. Inspired by Studs Terkel’s classic works of oral history, writer and filmmaker Cary McClelland spent several years interviewing people at the epicenter of the recent change, from venture capitalists and coders to politicians and protesters, from native sons and daughters to the city’s newest arrivals. The crisp and vivid stories of Silicon City’s diverse cast capture San Francisco as never before. The book opens with a longtime tour guide recounting the history of the original Gold Rush and observing how little the people of his city pay attention to its history; it ends on Fisherman’s Wharf, with the proprietor of an arcade game museum reminding us that even today’s technology will become relics of the past. In between we hear from people who have passed through Apple, Google, eBay, Intel, and the other big tech companies of our time. And we meet those who are experiencing the changes at the grassroots level: a homeless advocate in Haight-Ashbury, an Oakland rapper, a pawnbroker in the Mission, a man who helped dismantle and rebuild the Bay Bridge, and a woman who runs a tattoo parlor in the Castro. Silicon City masterfully weaves together a candid conversation across a divided community to create a dynamic portrait of a beloved city—and a cautionary tale for the entire country.
Roark is a bad man. His pig is a bad pig. They match in devilish temperament and violent deeds. Roark laughs at a drowned monk; his pig eats its own young and turns a boar sterile. As a spiteful tithe, the pig is given to the local monastery. The pig becomes a Christian. The pig is Saint Katy the Virgin. Fantastical and farcical, this short story parodies religious tropes and stereotypes. With a lively imagination and piercing wit, John Steinbeck delivers an absurd tale that amuses and entertains whilst asking powerful, revealing questions.
*Named one of Wall Street Journal's Best Books of 2015 *Selected as a Military Times's Best Book of the Year “You’re going up the Valley.” Black didn’t know its name, but he knew it lay deeper and higher than any other place Americans had ventured. You had to travel through a network of interlinked valleys, past all the other remote American outposts, just to get to its mouth. Everything about the place was myth and rumor, but one fact was clear: There were many valleys in the mountains of Afghanistan, and most were hard places where people died hard deaths. But there was only one Valley. It was the farthest, and the hardest, and the worst. When Black, a deskbound admin officer, is sent up the Valley to investigate a warning shot fired by a near-forgotten platoon, he can only see it as the final bureaucratic insult in a short and unhappy Army career. What he doesn’t know is that his investigation puts at risk the centuries-old arrangements that keep this violent land in fragile balance, and will launch a shattering personal odyssey of obsession and discovery as Black reckons with the platoon’s dark secrets, accumulated over endless hours fighting and dying in defense of an indefensible piece of land. The Valley is a riveting tour de force that changes our understanding of the men who fight our wars and announces John Renehan as one of the great American storytellers of our time.
Each of these delightful interconnected tales is devoted to a family living in a fertile valley on the outskirts of Monterey, California, and the effects that one particular family has on them all. Steinbeck tackles two important literary traditions here; American naturalism, with its focus on the conflict between natural instincts and the demand to conform to society's norms, and the short story cycle. Set in the heart of 'Steinbeck land', the lush Californian valleys.
The papers all said he was a fiend. I read all the papers. That's what they all said.' One of America's greatest writers explores mob violence, voyeurism and betrayal in these unforgettable tales of Californian life.
Joey Madden, the eleven-year-old narrator of Ruin Creek, is Joe now, a twenty-eight-year-old, Duke-trained anthropologist back on the Outer Banks doing ethnographic fieldwork in Little Roanoke, a traditional fishing community under stress from modernization. Attending services at Little Roanoke's evangelical church, Joe secures a berth aboard a commercial trawl boat called the Father's Price. Between trips to sea, Joe crosses paths with Day Shaughnessey, MD, an OB/GYN whose provision of birth and abortion services to local island women has put her in the crosshairs of the conservative community Joe has come to study. In the same family summer house where Joe once lived the painful end of his parents' marriage, his relationship with Day now begins. As they converge romantically, however, Joe and Day increasingly diverge on politics. If those who can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it, it's Joe and Day's fate-and Joe's, in particular-- to learn that those who can't forget the past are oftentimes condemned to repeat it, too.
