I love Steinbeck. Think he's under-rated.

Recently re-read "Travels with Charlie". My favorite of his though is "Cannery Row". I think someone mentioned it previously.

Read it in my teens also, and was enamored with Mack and and the other men. (bums or hobos then, homeless now?) I thought they were so cool; Steinbeck noted that they were so cool they wouldn't even turn around to see a parade pass by.

There was a movie; Nick Nolte played Doc, as I recall. But they turned Mack and the boys into the 3 Stooges. I like the Stooges a lot, but Mack et al were tough hombres, not pie-in-the-face clowns. Ruined the movie for me.

Maybe that's another thread, Peter T. Love the book/hate the movie, or vice versa.

While I'm on movies: someone above mentioned Hemingway's Have and Have Not, and he was dead on about the book vs the movie.

The book takes place in FL, or in the Carribean, while the movie is in, where, French Morocco or some other exotic port of call? Harry, in the book, is married; in the movie obviously not, and on and on.
Not even close, methinks.
   
Bill