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Literary Finds - Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck

Author John Steinbeck
Shuffling through tables of books at the University library during its bi-annual book sale, I came across a great find, the Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck printed in 1947. The back cover states that it was his first full length novel in eight years and will be added to my collection of Steinbeck books. I thought that I had most of his books, (still looking for Cup of Gold), so imagine my surprise when I found this old hardcover book, with its dust cover barely hanging onto the book. The pages looked like they had been printed on brown paper bags and are crinkly and crackly. It even smells like the book has been sitting on a shelf collecting dust for dozens of years. For more information about John Steinbeck, check out online literature classes at online schools that can teach you about John Steinbeck’s work and how he often populated his short stories with struggling characters.

It is a book that I will treasure for many years to come. It would have been great if it was a signed copy. I enjoy learning more about this man and his writing and his wonderful stories that came out of the everyday life's of ordinary people. This sounds like a great read and I can hardly wait, but first back to my English paper on Confessional poets during the Cold War. What are your favorite authors? Do you have any book collections? Look forward to hearing about it a comment.
 


About The Wayward Bus

The story of what happens on the bus ride, though it grips the reader from the first page to last, is not of paramount importance. What matters is the sense it gives people and how they react to one another - bewildered, aimless, driven by ordinary human impulses, restless and uneasy in our bewildered and aimless times.

Among the men and women of the book are a successful business man and his wife and daughter, a traveling salesman of funny gadgets (all of them invented by Steinbeck), a pimply yourth who is planning to study radar, a waitress infatuated with Clark Gable, a wise bus driver and Camille, who had - through no fault of her own - an irresistible lure for men. These and a few others are the people who make up this world. He tells us how much it is appetite - for food, for drink, for sex - and how much of it is dreams. When we are through we know them from their beginnings to their probable ends. We love the good in then and pity the bad. We know their personal tragedies, their comedies and their heart-hungers.

Comments

  1. Ooh I love finding old books! Don't you just love the smell and feel of old hardback books?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's great, Rebecca! I love finding old books like that. It might be worth quite a lot of money in the future. People collect this stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How neat. There's a store in NC that carries old books. You can smell how old they are from the time you enter the store. I don't get there every time we visit, by I try to go often.

    I like to find old John Jakes books. I've found some Twain every once in a while or Dickens too.

    ReplyDelete

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