Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Cannery Row by John SteinbeckOne of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World''Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.'Meet the gamblers, whores, drunks, bums and artists of Cannery Row in Monterey, California, during the Great Depression. They want to throw a party for their friend Doc, so Mack and the boys set about, in their own inimitable way, recruiting everyone in the

where strangers are never simple and misreading them can have disastrous consequences

offers an original perspective on this still controversial period: a prism through which the moral and personal costs of violence

Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional

A The Times & Sunday Times Literary Nonfiction Book of the Year

and a different plant to cure each part

and he hasn’t told his friends – Miller

two girls named Yoko are locked in a bitter rivalry to the death

resonate long after you put the book down' James McConnachie

Broken down into sections exploring each of the main types of insect

The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children

dramatic ruins and picturesque villages

repeatedly