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,┬аCup of Gold┬а(1929). After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books,┬аThe Pastures of Heaven┬а(1932) and┬аTo a God Unknown┬а(1933), and worked on short stories later collected in┬аThe Long Valley┬а(1938). Popular success and financial security came only with┬аTortilla Flat┬а(1935), stories about MontereyтАЩs paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class:┬аIn Dubious Battle┬а(1936),┬аOf Mice and Men┬а(1937), and the book considered by many his finest,┬аThe Grapes of Wrath┬а(1939).┬аThe Grapes of Wrath┬аwon both the┬аNational Book Award┬аand the┬аPulitzer Prize┬аin 1939.Steinbeck received the┬аNobel Prize in Literature┬аin 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with the┬аUnited States Medal of Freedom┬аby 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 Stechschulte┬аhas worked as an audiobook narrator since 1996. Tom has amassed a considerable range of titles, including young adult titles, celebrity memoirs, and historical fiction like┬аThe 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."