This book made me interested in trying foods- vegetables- I don't even like, such as cauliflower. The way he writes so passionately about food, and the history of each piece of produce, really inspired me to think more about what I eat and where it comes from.
All of the recipes sounded delicious, and I thought about making each one. But it was the information that made it a book I could read cover to cover. In addition, we'll read it over and over again by section and produce to remind us of what to look for and how to select the best produce.

Depressing, and frustrating, but a good book. It chronicles the ambition, rise, and fall of a tenet farmer. The hurdles he faces, and how he eventually succumbs, had an air of inevitability about it.
The descriptions of farming life in the south were interesting to me, since I didn't know much about post-Civil War tenet farming. I hadn't realized what an unfair system it was.
I didn't have a lot of sympathy for Alvin marrying someone wholly unsuitable for him. More common sense would have perhaps allowed him his dreams.

Wow, what a great book. I know it's good when I am laughing one minute and then crying the next. Two different men tell their story and it is molded into one very fine book.

I'm interested, after reading Omnivore's Dilemma, about what we can do to eat better, especially for the environment.
This book was interesting and had really good facts- I was especially interested in the in-depth discussions of local food and why it's not always the best option, depending on your reasons for buying it. I also really liked the explanations of different models for calculating the water consumed to grow cattle. I found these discussions useful and unbiased. However, the authors were very focused on animal suffering. I'm not in favor of animal suffering, but it's not my first concern for food and I don't believe it's morally wrong to eat meat. They were obviously hugely biased to the vegan/vegetarian diet, and their objectivity became questionable as they act as if scientific studies are questionable but accept anecdotal stories as strong evidence for their own side.
Informative, but a touch holier-than-thou. I did really like their conclusions that not everybody has to be vegan all the time, it's important to decide what you can do.

This book follows the lives of real-life people who were the movers and shakers in early Oregon. They built may of the roads and bridges along the Columbia, opening up much of Oregon to development. They made a fortune but also were extremely generous to the people of lesser wealth. They had no children but adopted and took care of many.
They were also great friends to the natives and did much to protect their rights. The saddest part was her relationship with her mother and the custody of Ella. It made me glad that she made herself a home full of love, rather than live forever how she was raised.
I always wonder about the novelization of real people- it's so personal and perhaps inaccurate. But this was a great read and I felt so interested in Oregon history.

A great classic. I love the storyline but the ending always makes me sad.

I do love Steinbeck. What an amazing author. I think this book turned me on to literature in a meaningful way when I was in high school. I picked it up for class because it was short and easy looking, and surprised me by affecting me enough to cry at the end.
I felt similarly about it this time around. i think I got more out of it after reading Grapes of Wrath, since I know more about the entire culture of migrant work and Steinbeck's take on it.
The permanent sadness of the characters, the ruination of a dream that could never come true, the whole unfairness of the system really spoke to me. I can really understand why t his book is a classic and will always endure.

one of my favorite books of all time. poignant, lennie gets to me every time.

A classic. Such a fast read with a punch at the end.

What makes a big book? Not physical length. Knowing this novel's reputation as one of Steinbeck's masterpieces, I was astounded to lay hands on its mere hundred pages. Not scale of setting, either. The entire novella takes place in and around the bunkhouse of a California farm, and contains fewer than a dozen characters; it is so compact that it might almost have been made for film, television, or the stage (and it did in fact succeed in all these media). The people, furthermore, are by no means important or powerful; Steinbeck tells of ordinary itinerant laborers, bindle stiffs, living precariously from job to job.

Without any effort or overt symbolism, Steinbeck shows something simultaneously particular and vast. His characters are individuals, very real yet bound to one another and to us through their common humanity. The novel speaks to a particular time -- the American West in the late thirties -- and yet seems timeless. It takes a specific corner of California ("A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green") and makes it a kind of oasis of simplicity, as in the marvelous opening scene where the principal characters choose to spend a night sleeping under the stars rather than arriving too soon at the farm.

And nothing could be bigger than the heart of Lennie, the simple-minded giant who comes to the farm with his friend and protector George, but whose confused feelings and ignorance of his own strength get him into trouble. The bond between him and George is not fully explained, but it is palpably filled with a kind of love. Lennie's inability to articulate his feelings is shared by all the other characters to some extent; this is a world in which men keep themselves to themselves and move on alone. But their very inarticulateness gives their underlying emotions an almost primal power. Truly, this is a big book.

This book is a classic for a reason. There is an essential lesson about humanity here. It's my favorite book by a favorite author. I've taught this book many times and I never get tired of it.
P.S. I love John Malkovich and Gary Sinise as Lennie and George.

This book was fabulous. To read it as an adult is to read a fiction novela on the culture of the depression era migrant workers and of how mental disabilities were viewed in the working class. The characters are all relatable and their situations all thought provoking. This book leaves a lasting impression that translates into true life.

the only one of her books i keep in the house. i really like this one.

This novel takes place in the environs of Zebulon Mountain in the southern Appalachians. There's not much to see, really, just some picturesque scenery and federal parkland overlooking scattered farms and a small community whose inhabitants mostly speak in a dialect reflecting their traditional values and insularity. During one season we meet four lonely people: an alienated park ranger, a grieving young widow, an elderly botanist, and a seemingly ageless apple grower. Their stories are interesting, but this does not measure up to Kingsolver's other novels in my estimation.

BLURB



REVIEW

The tone of this book was sweet and wistful, but the action was almost painfully slow. It moved, in fact, something like the seasons of the year, which along with the land, were characters in this story. The story of immigrant Nebraskan farmers of the early 20th century is mostly about how they lived rather than things that happened, and it takes about about three-quarters of the book before the action finally picks up a little.

I liked Willa Cather's eloquent and flowing style and the coloring of the land and its people. It reminded me a bit of an old, tinted, softly glowing, romantic movie of maybe 50 years ago. I also liked her animation of the land and weather, although I was bothered a little by its pantheistic flavor; the land, in fact, was the most animated character of the book.

In short, if you like a journey better than its destination, this is not a bad book. For myself, I need both journey and destination.

I had a really difficult time finding this book after reading a great review of it. I finally received it as a Christmas gift and am in the middle of reading it now. The writing is wonderful and the story is endearing and interesting. I know that I will be giving this book a 5 even before finishing it.

This book did not let me down in the end. A very beautiful and different story. Growing up on a small farm in Millersburg, New Jersey, during the depression era, with fathers/grandfathers gone, and grandmother the matriarch of the family over daughter, two grandchildren and a black caretaker and wife, this book moves through many side stories and small mysteries of family life. I loved this book and hope to be able to find Cauley's other novels.

This is a review by By Michael Schau (New York, NY United States) - I couldn't have said it better:

In the small New Jersey town of Millersburg a farm family is emotionally ambushed by a nearby murder that has fallout for every member. But this is not a murder mystery; the secrets and clues to them are more of the family variety, the dark corners that, once illuminated, have sorry and inevitable outcomes. Author Cauley has created a narrative thread that is simple yet complex, and yet the plot is not the center of his startling book. The members of the Wayland Family, three generations and some expertly and generously detailed peripheral characters, are so finely realized that their crises and discoveries are as affecting as any in your own family album. Small-town life circa 1940 has seldom been written with such atmospheric feeling. Cauley bucks today's trend of the long book -- it is only 200 pages -- but he creates an elegant reading experience that is as moving as it is memorable.

What a classic. I remember my dad reading this book out loud to my brother and I when we were little, and I loved it just as much now as I did then. Some of the stories made me cry, but mostly they're pretty funny.
It's amazing how different life was then. People were so self-sufficient- but it doesn't seem like there were any fewer assholes then than there are now.

In 1972 St. Martin's Press published a volume of memoirs by an unknown Scottish veterinarian named James Herriot. Its title was "All Creatures Great and Small," Within a year, the book had become recognized as a masterpiece. In the two decades that have followed, James Herriot has become one of the most universally loved authors of our time. Its pages, now as then, are full of humor, warmth, pathos, drama, and James Herriot's unique, richly justified love of life. His journeys across the Yorkshire dales, his encounters with humans and dogs, cows and kittens are illumined by his infinite fascination and affection, and rendered with all the infectious joy of a born storyteller. As one reviewer wrote," If you ever loved a friend, human or otherwise, this is the book for you."

My mother gave me this book in the 70's and I adored it. Having grown up on a farm with a love of all animals, Mr. Herriot just reinforced those feelings a hundred-fold. What a unique, gentle, loving man he is -- a man I would pick to be among the top ten people I would love to meet.

I just reread this book for the third time and it still takes me from laughter to tears from one page to the next. And isn't that what a good book is supposed to do -- make you vicariously live all the emotions in it.