East of Eden

Customer Reviews:

You just don't get it.......2007-09-11

I read all the bad reviews and this is my answer to them. Why should I care about these characters? Because these characters are you and all the people in your boring insignificant life, why should we care about you?
Why is the book so long? Why is life so long? Because it is...
The essential lesson that I felt Steibeck was trying to hit home through all his meandering is that life essentially is everything, it is right, wrong, predetermined, self determined, selfish and selfless. Everything has reason and absolutely no reason at all. It makes no sense but its your job as a human to be a good person and try to go beyond the circumstances that life presents you. The only destiny you have is the one you make and he couldn't just say that because that's not how people learn. People learn by doing messed up and evil things or great good things and that's just it. Steinbeck is explaining the purpose of life in this book, maybe you should give it another go.

East of Eden.......2007-09-02

Simply put, this book is a masterpiece and is my all-time favorite book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

A Joy to Read.......2007-08-28

I have never felt the need to review a book before, but I just finished reading East of Eden for the second time. I read quickly, but this time I read slowly and savored every page. As a long-time resident of Monterey County, I am touched by the poetic descriptions of places locals take for granted. The Salinas River which runs underground in summer made a dry river bed into a lyrical image that I have never lost. The beauty of the conversations between Samuel Hamilton and Lee, the sadness of the anecdotal stories that claim only a page or two, and the history of the area combine with the larger story seamlessly. Steinbeck didn't just write -- he conjured full-blown images that stay with me long after I put the book down.

"greatest book ever".......2007-08-23

I actually bought this for my wife. She reads every night before going to sleep and according to her this is the best book she has ever read. She commented on the writing as being very desciptive and making her feel like she was there. "A very satifying read"

Steinbeck Rocks.......2007-08-04

I just finished this book a week ago! What an amazing story as told by an amazing author.

I tend not to provide a synopsis of the book in my reviews and I will continue that trend in this review. I will say that East of Eden is basically a grand morality play using the Biblical Story of Cain and Abel as its backdrop.

As in Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck throws in chapters that are very omniscient in scope, some might even say Biblical in tone. It is in one of these chapters that Steinbeck basically asks the reader to make a choice between good and evil in his or her life. I had to stop reading at that point and just think for a little while....that is the sign of a great author at the top of his game!

Highly recommended!!!

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East of Eden
Sprawling Insightful Epic
A work of art
Enjoy it or don't, but read it.
My Favorite Book

East of Eden
John Steinbeck
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0142000655

Book Description

Today, nearly forty years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. We have begun publishing his many works for the first time as blackspine Penguin Classics featuring eye-catching, newly commissioned art. This season we continue with the seven spectacular and influential books East of Eden, Cannery Row, In Dubious Battle, The Long Valley, The Moon Is Down, The Pastures of Heaven, and Tortilla Flat. Penguin Classics is proud to present these seminal works to a new generation of readers—and to the many who revisit them again and again.

Customer Reviews:

East of Eden.......2007-09-15

I had read this book and thorougly enjoyed it so I sent it to my grandson who is 21 who basically is not really a "reader". His reaction to the story was worth everything to me. He now wants me to send him more classics which in itself is a miracle. So more Steinbeck and now Faulkner, Williams and whatever I can think of.

Sprawling Insightful Epic.......2007-09-14

This is a very dark yet illuminating book, filled with pithy aphorisms, subtle humor, realism, tension, sorrow, joy, and trenchant psychology. A thought I had, shortly after reading the book was that a book isn't just created for you, you must also be created for it. You have to be ready for it. Like a wine that had sufficiently fermented, I one day found myself being consumed and combined with the awareness that went into this very heavy book. If I tried reading it only two years earlier, I don't think I'd have gotten as much out of it. But with experience, we become heavier.

Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong reverent spirit that would bear much: for the heavy and the heaviest longs its strength.

-Nietzsche

A work of art.......2007-08-26

If you have never read another Steinbeck, try this one. It is perhaps his best work, but alas, all of his work is breathtaking. One of my favorites.

Enjoy it or don't, but read it. .......2007-08-09

I found this book to be fairly enjoyable and full of beautiful gems. I wrote down pages of quotes that I thought were worthy of being remembered. I reveled in many of Steinbeck's descriptions and elaborations. However, I do understand how many people could find this book obvious and simple.

To me it was an inspirational read much in the same way that the Bible can be moving. I took much value away from reading this novel because I began to look at it as an example of good and evil. A simplistic illustration that allowed the writer to voice his thoughts about life. This did not necessarily create a great turning point in literature, but I believe it did what it was intended to do; make the reader reflect.

I was not left with an overpowering thirst to run out and add this book to my collection but neither did I regret the time I had spent reading it. I would definitely recommend this book because I believe it is worth pushing through the boring parts to have the entire work to look back at and ponder. After all, over 100 of us had comments to share about it.

"Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk."

My Favorite Book.......2007-06-22

This is a phenomenal novel. The crowning achievement of Steinbeck's lexicon of inspired work. The book is operatic, pondering the burden of free will and spanning generations of a family that constantly struggles to escape itself. It is fully American, fully human, and fully a religious experience. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to be moved, inspired, and find their new favorite book.

Steinbeck Novels 1942-1952: The Moon Is Down / Cannery Row / The Pearl / East of Eden (Library of America)

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Reading Steinbeck
A Nobel Laureate's Eden and Our Many Faults and Failures.
Thanks, Library of America!

Steinbeck Novels 1942-1952: The Moon Is Down / Cannery Row / The Pearl / East of Eden (Library of America)
John Steinbeck
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1931082073
Release Date: 2002-02-14

Book Description

This third volume in The Library of America's authoritative edition of John Steinbeck's writings shows one of America's most enduring popular writers continuing restlessly to explore new subject matter and new approaches to storytelling.

The Moon Is Down (1942), set in an unnamed Scandinavian country under German occupation, dramatizes the transformation of ordinary life under totalitarian rule and the underground struggle against the Nazi invaders. In Cannery Row (1945) Steinbeck paid tribute to his closest friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, in the central character of Doc, proprietor of the Western Biological Laboratory and spiritual and financial mainstay of a cast of philosophical drifters and hangers-on. The comic and bawdy evocation of the main street of Monterey's sardine-canning district has made this one of the most popular of all Steinbeck's novels. Steinbeck's long involvement with Mexican culture is distilled in The Pearl (1947). Expanding on an anecdote he had heard about a boy who found a pearl of unusual size, Steinbeck turned it into an allegory of the corrupting influence of sudden wealth. The Pearl appears here with the original illustrations by José Clemente Orozco.

Ambitious in scale and original in structure, East of Eden (1952) recounts the violent and emotionally turbulent history of a Salinas Valley family through several generations. Drawing on Biblical parallels, East of Eden is an epic that explores the writer's deepest and most anguished concerns within a landscape that for him had mythic resonance.

Customer Reviews:

Reading Steinbeck.......2005-01-07

I hadn't read John Steinbeck since high school, but I returned to him about a year ago after our book group read his late novel, "The Winter of our Discontent". I was pleased to read this collection of Steinbeck's novels, written from 1942 -- 1952,in the Library of America series. They are of varied lengths, varying settings, and varied themes. Yet they show a writer with a broad continuity of themes including people, the land, American values, human sexuality, the importance of culture and education, and much else. It may be useful to explore some of the threads among the novels collected in this volume.

Steinbeck wrote his short novel "The Moon is Down" in 1941 following a request by the Foreign Information Service to assist American propaganda efforts during WW II. The story is set in an unnamed Scandanavian country which, when the book opens, has been invaded by Germany. Although the book is short, the characterizations are diverse and effective as Steinbeck gives the reader portraits of the German office corps, and of the people of the town, including the mayor, a collaborator with the enemy, and a young woman, Molly, whose husband has been shot by the invaders. I particularly enjoyed the use Steinbeck made of the products of human creativity and thought in his story which emphasizes the priceless nature of human freedom. Thus, the climactic scene of the story includes a discussion of Plato's Apology among the mayor, his friend, and the German commander. Another critical scene in the book turns on the love poetry of the German poet Heinrich Heine. In this novel, Steinbeck met the aims of the Foreign Information Service, but more importantly he produced a defense of human liberty that far transcended these aims.

In the next book in this collection, Cannery Row,(1944) Steinbeck deliberately avoided the war. He claimed that he wrote the book as "a kind of nostalgic thing ... for a group of soldiers who had said to me: 'Write something funny that isn't about the war. Write something for us to read -- we're sick of war."

The book is set in Steinbeck's beloved Monterey, California during the depression. The main character in the book, Doc, is modeled on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist. Doc befriends a group of Cannery Row denizens of the local flophouse -- headed by a character named Mack -- and the relationship between Doc and the "Palace Flophouse" residents forms the basis for most of the scenes in this book. Other characters include Dora, the madam of the Bear Flag Restaurant who is sympathetically portrayed. As we will see, Steinbeck portrayed madams in other books with a much harsher view. I was surprised to find in this book a discussion of an ancient Sanskrit love poem, "Black Marigolds" together with discussions by Doc of Monteverdi, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. The importance Steinbeck attached to high products of human thought and creativity is sometimes overlooked.

The third novel in this collection is the brief work, "The Pearl" (1947) which, unfortunately, has become the bane of many young readers who have the work forced upon them. Both the book and the readers deserve a better fate. The book takes place in Mexico and is a story that shows the effect upon a poor family of discovering a pearl of great wealth. It is simply and eloquently told. Steinbeck describes his book as "a parable" in which "perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it." The book makes great use of song imagery as we are told at the outset that the people of the Mexican village "had been great makers of songs so that everything they saw or thought or did or heard became a song." The main character, Kino, hears in his heart various songs throughout the book, the most important of which is the "Song of the Family" or the "Whole" which celebrates his life with his wife and new baby. This is a short, beautiful story which glows with the many colors and ambiguities as did the pearl which Kino discovers.

The final novel in this collection, and the longest by far is "East of Eden" which Steinbeck wrote in a burst of energy in 1951. This was Steinbeck's favorite among all his works and he literally put himself into it in the person of the narrator.

Steinbeck said that he wrote "East of Eden" to tell "the story of my country and the story of me" to his two young sons in order to demonstrate "the greatest story of all -- the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness, how these doubles are inseparable." For all its melodrama, length, sometimes black-and-white characterizations, and preachiness, the novel achieves its goals. I was transfixed by the book.

Most of the story takes place in the Salinas Valley of Northern California and involves the saga of two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks. There are two Trask brothers, Adam and Charles, and twin sons of Adam, (presumably), and his wife Cathy -- Aron and Caleb. Both Adam and Charles and Aron and Caleb replicate in their own ways the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. Steinbeck gives this story a full biblical style exegisis as the reader sees the story of the conflict between good and evil play out in double over the course of the book.

This book features another madam, Kate -- or Cathy Trask whom Steinbeck describes as a "monster". This is a far different woman than the Dora of "Cannery Row".

This book portrays strikingly the good and evil of which people are capable and their capacity to make choices -- to understand the good and reject the evil. Steinbeck writes in a humanistic rather than in a theological way.

In summary, this volume includes four different yet related works by an outstanding American author. This book will reward reading by those who wish to explore some of the great literature that has been written in the United States. The Library of America deserves gratitude for making our country's literary and cultural achievements available to many readers.

A Nobel Laureate's Eden and Our Many Faults and Failures........2004-07-18

Whenever "the great American novel" comes up in conversation, the names most frequently bandied about are Fitzgerald ("The Great Gatsby"), Faulkner ("The Sound and the Fury"), Hemingway ("The Old Man and the Sea") - and John Steinbeck, chronicler of rural California and the ordinary man's plight, like Faulkner and Hemingway winner of both the Literature Nobel Prize (1962) and the Pulitzer (1940, for "The Grapes of Wrath"), in addition to multiple other distinctions.

Little in Steinbeck's upbringing hinted at his future rise to fame. Born 1902, a modest Salinas, California, flour-mill-manager-turned-county-treasurer's son, he worked as a farm-hand during high school and studied English and biology at Stanford, but left 1925 without graduating to pursue journalism and writing in New York; only to have to return home a year later. Surviving on a number of odd jobs, he continued to write. His first novel, 1929's "A Cup of Gold," however, failed to return his publisher's $250 advance, and his subsequent collection of interrelated stories ("The Pastures of Heaven," 1932) and novel ("To a God Unknown," 1933) likewise remained largely unknown. Steinbeck's fate changed with 1935's humorous "Tortilla Flat," chronicling life in a Chicano community (and an allegory on Steinbeck's own first literary influence, the Arthurian legend, to which he returned much later in an unfinished attempt to modernize Mallory's "Morte D'Arthur"). Both "Tortilla Flat" and the subsequent "In Dubious Battle" (1936) - Steinbeck's first exploration of the California's migratory workers' fate - won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal; and the sale of "Tortilla Flat"'s movie rights earned him his first truly big check. Steinbeck's reputation grew further with the interrelated coming-of-age stories of "The Red Pony" (1937), and his next two novels, 1937's poignant "Of Mice and Men" and, particularly, "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939), the story of angry "harvest gypsy" Tom Joad and his family. Both works are still among America's 35 books most frequently banned from school curricula: keen testimony to the nerves they continue to touch.

Steinbeck's major works are collected in (to date?!) three volumes of the Library of America series, the first covering his 1932 - 1937 writings, the second "The Grapes of Wrath," Steinbeck's extensive background research ("Harvest Gypsies," 1936), the short story collection "The Long Valley" (1938) and his contribution to "The Sea of Cortez," a 1941 publication about his 1940 marine exploration with close friend Ed Ricketts. The present - third - volume contains three works from the 1940s, in addition to the awe-inspiring "East of Eden;" thus omitting the 1942 and 1948 nonfiction accounts "Bombs Away" and "A Russian Journal," the 1947 character study "The Wayward Bus" and the 1950 play-novelette "Burning Bright".

"The Moon Is Down" (1942) reflects Steinbeck's impressions upon hearing the testimony of refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. Originally conceived as a play set in the U.S. but revised as a novel set in an unnamed Scandinavian country, it describes the struggle of a group of underground fighters in an occupied society. Widely read in occupied Europe, in 1946 it won Norway's King Haakon Liberty Cross.

"Cannery Row" (written 1944, published a year later) was a response to a group of soldiers' request to Steinbeck to write "something funny that isn't about war." It revolves around Doc Burton, a literary incarnation of the author's friend Ed Ricketts, first introduced as a supporting character in "In Dubious Battle" and now taking center stage as a man whose mind has "no horizon," and his sympathy "no warp." (The novel's dedication reads: "For Ed Ricketts who knows why or should.") - Steinbeck returned to Doc and his Monterey community in 1954's "Sweet Thursday."

"The Pearl," the folklore-based story of a boy whose life is altered (not for the better) by the discovery of a precious pearl, began as a screenplay for a film directed by Mexican Emilio Fernandez. The novel's publication was postponed to coincide with the movie's early 1948 release; by this time the story had, however, already appeared in a magazine.

"East of Eden," by far the longest work contained herein, was, according to Steinbeck himself, *the* major novel of his life: "I think there is only one book to a man," he noted in a letter to his publisher. Of epic scope and breathtaking craftsmanship and complex characters, it is part chronicle of California's early settlement, part family saga and part tale of two unequal brothers' rivalry, modeled on the bible's Cain and Abel. Intending the book primarily for his sons, Steinbeck commented that it was like a box containing "[n]early everything I have ... [p]ain and excitement ... evil thoughts and good thoughts - the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation." The writing process was accompanied by a series of letters to Steinbeck's publisher, published 1969 as "Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters."

In his remaining 16 years, Steinbeck published only three more works of fiction - besides "Sweet Thursday," the satirical "Short Reign of Pippin IV" (1957) and 1961's swan-song on materialism, "The Winter of Our Discontent." (The uncompleted "Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights" was published posthumously.) His most popular later work is the journal of his trans-American road trip with his poodle Charley ("Travels With Charley," 1962). But he remained a critical voice, released several collections of journalism and when he died, left a legacy also including a treasury of letters and two highly-acclaimed screenplays, for an adaptation of his own "Red Pony" and for 1952's "Viva Zapata!" (starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn), in addition to screen versions of his novels involving Hollywood luminaries from John Ford and Elia Kazan to Henry Fonda, James Dean, Spencer Tracy, Robert Mitchum and, more recently, Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.

"The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement." - John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1962).

Thanks, Library of America!.......2002-03-10

It's great to see Steinbeck's works coming out in this nice edition. This volume is up to LOA's usual excellent standards, and like the first two volumes in the Steinbeck series, continues covering both famous pieces like Cannery Row and East of Eden, as well as some of his less known works. In any case it's a real treat for any Steinbeck fan. Can't wait for the fourth volume!

The Steinbeck Centennial Collection: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Pearl, Cannery Row, Travels With Charley, In Search of America (Boxed Set)

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The Steinbeck Centennial Collection
well...
Awesome collection
A wonderful collection
The Pearl

The Steinbeck Centennial Collection: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Pearl, Cannery Row, Travels With Charley, In Search of America (Boxed Set)
John Steinbeck
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0147716756

Book Description

The Steinbeck Centennial Collection: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Pearl, Cannery Row, Travels With Charley In Search of America (Boxed Set) Description: No writer is more quintessentially American than John Steinbeck. Born in 1902 in Salinas, California, Steinbeck attended Stanford University before working at a series of mostly blue-collar jobs and embarking on his literary career. Profoundly committed to social progress, he used his writing to raise issues of labor exploitation and the plight of the common man, penning some of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century and winning such prestigious awards as the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He received the Nobel Prize in 1962, "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." Today, more than thirty years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures.

The boxed set, containing deluxe trade paperback editions with french flaps, is being released in honor of the Steinbeck centennial being celebrated throughout 2002. Penguin Putnam Inc, in partnership with the Steinbeck Foundation and the Great Books Foundation is sponsoring numerous events throught the year.

Customer Reviews:

The Steinbeck Centennial Collection.......2006-11-03

I purchased it to replace volumes
"borrowed" over the years and read all again, some for the first time in decades. They haven't changed and they never disappoint.
This would be a perfect gift for a young reader just beginning to build their adult collection.

well..........2006-07-04

excellent excellent EXCELLENT! what a set! my only problem is that penguin continues to ignore the fact that they should be printing on acid-free paper!! i don't get this? such a leading company, with amazing products, yet, how long will these books actually last before they start to deteriorate?

m. bailey

Awesome collection.......2005-10-25

I just moved to Salinas, CA when I ordered this set. I had never read John Steinbeck before, and thought this was a good time to start. Wow was I in for a treat! Phenomenal poetic language, incredible story lines, wonderful location descriptions. How exciting it is to read such stories taking place in the very settings I'm exploring now! I recommend this to others who haven't ever been here either, you may just find yourself with another destination on your "places to go list."

A wonderful collection.......2004-02-17

I just finished < > in my reading class,we even had discussed the similarities between Lennie and Forest Gump,and the differences between Steibeck's concise style and Hemingway's typical terseness.Afterward,I ordered < >,checked < >from my high school liabary.And now,you got a chance to read all of his masterpieces in the same time.I respectfully recommanded you to looked at Steinbeck's novels based upon Salina Valley,CA,his hometown,a heavenly countryside throughout the spiritial world of the master writter.I think Steinbeck's distinguishment is that he reflected two worlds in a character,both historically and mentally.Of course,he had written an epic with roustic American speciality.

The Pearl.......2003-01-04

There was a poor family in La Paz, in a small village. Kino and Juana had a son name Coyotito.
One day, Coyotito was pinched by a scorpion, but his parents did not have enough money to pay for the medication. They unexpectily found a big pearl from the sea, so they decided to sell it and use the money to save Coyotito. Unfortunately, no one was willing to pay a decent price for the pearl. Since the price offer in the village was not enough to pay for the medication, the couple then decide to go to the capital and hoped to find a better buyer who was willing to offer a better price. Although the parent knew better that there would be many obstacles and problem throughout the journey, their love for their son gave them bravery motivation to move on.
The story is very interesting, but the topic is not my favorite. The story is described in detail and it gives me many images as I read on. Therefore, I would give this ***.

Catholicism: East of Eden Insights into Catholicism for the 21st Century

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Catholicism: East of Eden Insights into Catholicism for the 21st Century
Richard Bennett
Manufacturer: Berean Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0977422909

Product Description

Worldwide interest in all things Catholic mixes with consternation over recent disclosures from within the Catholic Church. Amid doctrinal and moral confusion, most issues remain unanalyzed and unexplained, leaving both Catholics and non-Catholics wondering where the Roman Catholic Church really stands. This book leaves no doubt about the truthful answer. Author Richard Bennett spent forty-eight years in Catholicism and twenty-two as a priest. Well qualified to explain the official Catholic position on Biblical issues and to discuss how that teaching is lived out in daily life, he addresses the 21st century issues of Catholicism with candor, speaking to both mind and heart. Each topic is carefully documented.

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Surviving James Dean
James Dean Forever
Age passes
Great book
The Bad and The Beautiful

Surviving James Dean
William Bast
Manufacturer: Barricade Legends / Barricade Books Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 156980298X

Book Description

A beautifully written memoir, candid and definitive, that tells the story of Bast's five year relationship with the charismatic actor and American legend--James Dean.

Customer Reviews:

Surviving James Dean.......2007-07-20

Even someone with a mediocre interest in Hollywood's rebel will find Bast's account intriguiing. There's something more than a biography hidden in the pages of "Surviving James Dean." It's almost much more like a memoir of William Bast's, and it allows the reader to get a sense of longing that one can easily relate to. "Surviving James Dean," is as much a love story as it is a recount of the icon-formation days of one of Hollywood's most enigmatic figures. The book honestly portrays the lonely, the erratic, and the very honest side of James Dean in a way that neither flatters nor harms a golden reputation shrouded in foggy dust.

One of the best lines in the novel regards a hug shared between the "teammates," (Dean's reference for the friendship) on the New York streets before James flies off to LA to begin filming "East of Eden." Bast references the warmth the hug left on him that day and even now, while writing the book, the warmth is remembered. Reading this book is much like the warmth from a good, meaningful hug. Even now, writing this review, I can feel the warmth left by an honest and intriguing memory of one of America's notable figurines.

James Dean Forever.......2007-05-03

This book was very dissapointing to me. As a James Dean fan, I was hoping to know more about James Dean's short and tragic life. I probably should have learned more about "Surviving James Dean" before I bought it. When I got to the center of the book, around page 179, I wondered who this book was supposed to be about. Was it supposed to be about James Dean or William Bast? Very dissapointing, indeed. If you are interested in learning more about James Dean, then avoid reading this one. Also, an interesting point that came out of this was that William Bast was open about his sexuality in "Surviving James Dean", and he mentioned how he kept his sexuality to himself due to the prejudice of that time period, but for some reason, Mr. Bast seems to think that it was ok for him to refer to James Dean as a "hick" from Indiana.

Age passes.......2007-03-09

Some time ago I met a gentleman who said he knew the roommate of James Dean (I was an Ensign USPHS at the time). He told me a number of things which at the time I thought were a little far fetched. But when I read this book I find that the things told to me were in fact "MORE THAN TRUE". This book is well written and has some very true to life facts that make it very memorable. To the point and very truthful as well as believeable. After all these years, reading this book, I realize that I really indirectly met and knew the James Dean and am grateful to read it.

Great book.......2007-02-16

As a worshipper of James Dean this was so informative, like he is still alive

The Bad and The Beautiful.......2007-01-15

Some people kvetch because Baxt, now nearly 80, has already gone to the James Dean well twice before (three times before if we count his famous teleplay about a James Dean-like actor caught in a web of celebrity license, "The Myth Makers".) First he wrote a quickie book in the immediate wake of Dean's horrific death (the first biography of the perished actor) and then years later he was instrumental in a TV version of Dean's life that was aired during our nation's bicentennnial and starred strangely vacant Stephen McHattie as Dean, while a handsome Michael Brandon played Bast himself as the 'best friend.' It was a weird production featuring such quintessentially 70s female stars as Amy Irving, Brooke Adams, Candy Clark, Heather Menzies, and Meg Foster all in one movie.

But here in 2006 all of a sudden it's time for Bast to show us what he could not reveal before, that Dean was gay and that his romance with Pier Angeli was a matter of wishful thinking on his part and on the part of the paparazzi and the movie moguls who were wary of scandal. Bast was there from the beginning, and was Dean's roommate for a year or more, and so he saw him literally with his pants down. And he describes their occasional romantic fumblings with each other, though it strikes me that the James Dean he describes wasn't really all that sexually driven. He had a yen for the dark side, which explains his liaison with Vampira and with Rogers Brackett, but that was just to help him act and to further his career. His strange posture was that of Quasimodo and many of his contemporaries would be startled to find out that in afterlife he has attained this sex god status. In retrospect, Bast's book is more interesting when Dean is off stage and Bast is able to focus on peripheral figures, like the Hollywood comedy genius Joan Davis, whom both Bast and Dean knew well (both were engaged to her daughter, Beverly). Someone should make a movie about Joan Davis and Beverly's relationship--it would be like Norma Desmond plus daughter, sort of like that Charles Busch play DIE MOMMIE DIE. (Now that we have all of Dean's screen work on DVD, surely it's time to pay attention to the magnificence of Joan Davis? Let's roll those babies out soon!) I also enjoyed finding out much more than I have ever known before about Alan Young of Mr. ED fame. I didn't even know he was Canadian, but now it all makes sense.

After Dean's death, Bast tells the story of being at the eye of the hurricane as a cult explodes around him and everywhere he goes, esepcially in England and France, people like Jean Cocteau want to shake his hand, or a body part somewhat lower on the anatomy, as a chance to touch the man who held James Dean in his arms. It was a heady period in European history, and Bast tells the story as it has never been told before.

East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

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East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
John Steinbeck
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
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ASIN: 0613996984

The Far Side of Eden: New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley

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Refreshing and to the point
Well written???
How can he type with a massive chip on his shoulder?
Sometimes the Truth Hurts
Some interesting points, but heavily biased

The Far Side of Eden: New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley
James Conaway
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0618067396

Book Description

James Conaway picks up the story begun a decade ago in his earlier book about Napa Valley, the premier American wine country and a place synonymous with the good life. By now the struggle over the valley's future has grown sharper and its success more glaring. Awash in dollars generated by the boom economy of the 1990s and the social ambitions it inspired, Napa is beset by too much of a good thing: new arrivals determined to have a vineyard of their own despite the fact that available land is running out, cult-wine producers in thrall to fabulously expensive "rocket juice" (cabernet sauvignon) that few locals can afford, established families wishing to hold on to the old ways, and camp followers caught up in the glamour of it all.
What has transformed a natural and agricultural beauty spot into a coveted global destination has left inevitable scars, and a small, impassioned band of environmentalists determine to resist further change. Alarmed by the wholesale felling of trees to make way for vines, the diminishment of the Napa River, and the decline in the health of the watershed, they strike back in a way rivets the valley and strongly divides the valley between those in favor of unbridled economic development and those insisting on limits.
Written by the author the New York Times credits with "a Saroyan-like sense of humor and and Balzac-like eye for detail," The Far Side of Eden takes us to the frontlines of America's ongoing conflicts about money, land, and power to tell a tale that has ramifications for us all.

Customer Reviews:

Refreshing and to the point.......2007-03-27

James Conway cuts to the chase in new money vs established money in a battle for land in Napa Valley. Detailed stories of conflicts between new money mentality of expand at any cost and old money in keeping things in check.

Good story lines. I hope James returns with an updated book as this was written in 2002 and much has changed since.

Well written???.......2003-10-14

Reading the other reviews, I cannot help but shake my head in astonishment...."Well Written"??? Ideas move in and out of paragraphs with no real logical flow of ideas. Few dates are presented to help the reader follow the timetable (which is likely because the scenes are re-sequenced for dramatic effect). I am an avid reader of literature, but found myself constantly rereading passages to try and decipher the idea being presented or the scene being described. I finally decided that the editor either gave up or never tried. Much of the book reads more like a stream of consciousness than a documentation of events witnessed by the author.

Furthermore, this book is an amalgam of ad hominem attacks on everyone who dares to make money in the wine industry. Those with family money are dismissed as "lucky spermers" unless like, Peter Mennen, they use their money to stop big business. Mennen is portrayed as the noble hero but seems to be more a naive idealist. Certainly, there are forces of good and bad in any capitalist industry, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ending vineyard development would lead to one of two things - more houses in place of vineyards or higher and higher prices for vintners as the scarcity increased their profits. Certainly, there is a middle ground yet Conaway, by following the bull-headed extremists, would have us believe that there can be no compromise.

Check this book out from the library if you must read it, but support more even-handed works with your dollars.

How can he type with a massive chip on his shoulder?.......2003-10-03

This is a book for people who hate Starbucks and complain incessantly about gentrification (while drinking expensive boutique coffee and loving the appreciation in their real estate). After reading half of it I got tired of the constant pot-shots and nasty, one-sided characterizations and had to put it down.

I'm not clear on who the author approves of, but he's clearly against anyone who lives, builds, or conducts business in Napa Valley -- plus anyone crass enough to actually visit for a weekend and enjoy the place.

If you are a part of the Napa community then you might enjoy the gossipy anecdotes in this book. If you are a hard-core, disgruntled environmentalist then you might find validation for your views. But if you are just interested in the region and land issues in general then you'll find a pissy, overblown screed that irritates more than it informs.

Sometimes the Truth Hurts.......2003-08-11

As a Napa resident and former winemaker, I can say that this book truly pulls back the curtains to expose the overinflated egos that are rapidly transforming our valley into just another trendy, overpriced tourist trap.

It is a much more entertaining and accurate read than Kolpan's Sense of Place which basically parrots Coppola's publicity agent's "approved" history. This is a must have book for anyone interested in what goes on behind the scenes in the Napa Valley.

Some interesting points, but heavily biased.......2003-01-11

As a former Napa vinter, I eagerly looked forward to reading Conway's excursion into my home county. While there are interesting ideas in the book, they lurk beneath the soil like potatoes, never springing forth to see the light of day. Many of my neighbors (and, I should add, close friends) are presented in this book as gross parodies; this, I suppose, might be expected from an outsider to the region, but I had a difficult time getting past these rough characterizations.

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath, The Moon Is Down, Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice And Men

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John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath, The Moon Is Down, Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice And Men

Manufacturer: Amaranth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
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Charles Dickens Four Complete Novels (Great Expectations, Hard Times, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities)

ASIN: 0830002855

Product Description

Collection of John Steinbeck's works

At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land

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An honest, humble, inspiring adventure
A study in courage
Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land
Hope
What real faith is all about. Amazing.

At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land
Yossi K. Halevi
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060505826

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Yossi Klein Halevi, born in America and now an Israeli citizen, embarked on a spiritual quest in order to appreciate the religious dimensions of conflicts in the Middle East. Beginning in 1998, he undertook "an attempt at religious empathy" in order "to test whether faith could be a means of healing rather than intensifying the conflicts in this land." Halevi, author of the critically acclaimed Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist, chose "to pray and meditate with my Christian and Muslim fellow believers," as "a conscious refutation of the way we religious people of different faiths have always judged each other--by what we believe about God, rather than how we experience God's presence." The holy days of each religion form the structure of At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden, and Halevi's encounters with Sufi dervishes, Muslim sheiks, monks, nuns, and laypeople are entertaining, poignant, and sometimes fearsome. The stories do not separate "spirituality" from "politics"--or history, psychology, or theology. His commitment to describing an integrated experience of the many aspects of religious life helps to make the book a successful exercise in empathy, and a book of lasting literary value. --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

A brilliantly observed memoir of an unprecedented and remarkable spiritual journey.

While religion has fuelled the often violent conflict plaguing the Holy Land, Yossi Klein Halevi wondered whether it could be a source of unity as well. To find the answer, this religious Israeli Jew began a two–year exploration to discover a common language with his Christian and Muslim neighbours. He followed their holiday cycles, befriended Christian monastics and Islamic mystics, and joined them in prayer in monasteries and mosques in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden traces that remarkable spiritual journey. Halevi candidly reveals how he fought to reconcile his own fears and anger as a Jew to relate to Christians and Muslims as fellow spiritual seekers. He chronicles the difficulty of overcoming multiple obstacles注eological, political, historical, and psychological注at separate believers of the three monotheistic faiths. And he introduces a diverse range of people attempting to reconcile the dichotomous heart of this sacred place柠struggle central to Israel, but which resonates for us all.

Customer Reviews:

An honest, humble, inspiring adventure.......2006-09-08

I just love this guy. Starting with a simple urge to connect with his neighbors, Yossi Halevi embarks on an awkward, fascinating, dangerous journey through Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. He discovers a series of surprising characters who dream, not just of peace between Jews, Muslims and Christians, but of spiritual friendship. And the story of these fragile, budding friendships becomes an adventure of almost overwhelming power.

I want to quote from one episode, where Halevi and a madcap Jew called Eliyahu Charanamrit McLean attend a mosque in Karawa village on the West Bank:

"This mosque was a family project: Everyone here belonged to the Abu-Laben clan. They were working class people; the shaykh himself was a car mechanic.

"What do the other Muslims think of you?" Eliyahu asked.

"That we're crazy," replied Saud's father. "They think we chant the name of 'Abdallah' instead of 'Allah"". Laughter.

I asked Saud what he experienced during the zakir [or dance of remembering God]. "That our hearts kept getting closer and closer to God," he said, with the Sufi vagueness I'd so often encountered from Ibrahim. ...

Ibrahim, not to be poetically outdone, added "Our souls went up to heaven like clouds".

"When you pray together," said the shaykh's father, "you form one heart".

I felt sad for this forlorn Sufi Shteibl. Here was an Islam with which we could make peace, yet it was almost absurdly perepheral. Still, maybe the fact that a handful of Muslims and Jews had danced together was enough for God to work with; perhaps He would magnify our prayers, widen the circle of ecstasy." (p. 104-105)

Halevi is realist enough to claim no easy victories. As the level of sectarian violence rises again, his network of friends retains little but hope and prayer. It's a marvelous book.

A study in courage.......2006-05-17

One problem with writing intelligent books on religion is that religion demands the author experience it. Halevi takes this difficult challenge and seeks common ground with Christians and Muslims. To find this common ground he is willing to push his boundaries, go beyond his fears to find a common ground.

In his efforts he encounters a Catholic order of religious that seeks to return to the Jewish roots of Jesus as a common ground for Jewish-Christian relations; a Catholic monk of the Melkite rite (Jerusalem rite) seeing Arab-Jewish understanding through the Arab Christian; a common ground of genocide with Armenian Christians; a common ground of love with Sufi sheiks ...

Throughout his search runs a thread of the common monotheistic underpinnings of the three major religions of Israel. A second thread is a more universal acceptance that includes the great Eastern traditions - Buddhism and Hinduism. The third thread is the history of the Jewish people and the reality of strife in Israel. Through these threads, Halevi challenges the reader to confront his or her prejudices in the political and religious arenas.

The net result is not a great book, but one I highly recommend because of the issues raised and the author's personal willingness to share his experience in addressing the issues.

Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land.......2005-10-08

This is a must for all ethnic groups to read.

Hope.......2005-09-10

The title is exact. Halevi is an extraordinary person: a mystic deeply rooted in his Jewish faith but who can share a common search for peace and religious experience with Christians, the historic persecutors of Jews, and with Muslims, who have now become the "enemy." I know three of the communities of Christians he shared with and the descriptions are accurate so I can assume the Muslim sections are just as fair. Anyone searching for religious and mystic truth that is non-violent but serious about faith and God will love this book.

What real faith is all about. Amazing........2005-02-14

Yossi Halevy thinks he is only writing about interfaith connections in the holy land, but in fact the most inspiring aspect of the book is the delicate portrait of his own faith in God, where this deep faith takes him, and the grace of goodwill and wisdom that it creates inside his soul.

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