John Steinbeck, born in Salinas, California, in 1902, grew up in a fertile agricultural valley, about 25 miles from the Pacific Coast. Both the valley and the coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction. In 1919 he went to Stanford University, where he intermittently enrolled in literature and writing courses until he left in 1925 without taking a degree. During the next five years he supported himself as a laborer and journalist in New York City, all the time working on his first novel,ย Cup of Goldย (1929). After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books,ย The Pastures of Heavenย (1932) andย To a God Unknownย (1933), and worked on short stories later collected inย The Long Valleyย (1938). Popular success and financial security came only withย Tortilla Flatย (1935), stories about Montereyโs paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class:ย In Dubious Battleย (1936),ย Of Mice and Menย (1937), and the book considered by many his finest,ย The Grapes of Wrathย (1939).ย The Grapes of Wrathย won both theย National Book Awardย and theย Pulitzer Prizeย in 1939.Steinbeck received theย Nobel Prize in Literatureย in 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with theย United States Medal of Freedomย by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Steinbeck died in New York in 1968. Today, more than 30 years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures.
Tom Stechschulteย has worked as an audiobook narrator since 1996. Tom has amassed a considerable range of titles, including young adult titles, celebrity memoirs, and historical fiction likeย The Big Oyster. His numerous Broadway credits include The Seagull, Inherit the Wind, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I'm Not Rappaport. Besides film credits including the Manchurian Candidate and What About Bob?, Stechshulte was featured on one of the most famous episodes of The Incredible Hulk ever, September 1979's "Blind Rage."