Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
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Of Mice and Men

Author: John Steinbeck

Narrator: Gary Sinise

Unabridged: 3 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 04/13/2011


Synopsis

Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.From the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, this classic story of an unlikely pair, two migrant workers in California during the Great Depression who grasp for their American Dream, profoundly touches readers and audiences alike. George and his simple-minded friend Lenny dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their own—a couple of acres and a few pigs, chickens, and rabbits back in Hill Country where land is cheap. But after they come to work on a ranch in the fertile Salinas Valley of California, their hopes, like “the best laid schemes o’mice an’ men,” begin to go awry.Of Mice and Men also represents an experiment in form, as Steinbeck described his work, “a kind of playable novel, written in novel form but so scened and set that it can be played as it stands.” A rarity in American letters, it achieved remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.

About The Author

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, Cup of Gold (1929). After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books, The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), and worked on short stories later collected in The Long Valley (1938). Popular success and financial security came only with Tortilla Flat (1935), stories about Monterey’s paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class: In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and the book considered by many his finest, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The Grapes of Wrath won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1939.Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with the United States Medal of Freedom 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.Gary Sinise is an award-winning actor who is best known for his role as Lieutenant Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He also won acclaim for his work in Of Mice and Men, Apollo 13, Truman (Golden Globe Award), and George Wallace (Emmy Award). He has narrated several books by John Steinbeck, including Of Mice and Men and Travels with Charley in Search of America.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Cyndie Browning on 2007-12-28 10:12:55

I've heard about Of Mice and Men all my life but had never read it. Gary Sinise does a fine job of reading it, with different voices for each character. The story is simple but almost horrifying as I watched Lenny accidentally pet Curly's wife to death, and then realized that George was going to kill Lenny rather than let him suffer a trial, prison, or execution. This short story was SO good that I plan to read more of Steinbeck's books from now on!

Goodreads review by Paul on August 06, 2016

The title of this novel is only 50% accurate, a very poor effort. Yes, it’s about men, but there’s little or nothing about mice in these pages. Mice enthusiasts will come away disappointed. This got me thinking about other novel titles. You would have to say that such books as The Slap, The Help, Th......more

Goodreads review by Lisa of Troy on August 12, 2024

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a novella (around 72 pages) that focuses on two men in The Great Depression Era. George is a small man while Lennie is the bigger man. They are two farmhands who have a big dream to one day own their own small place. However, George and Lennie have just been run o......more

Goodreads review by Kemper on November 12, 2009

I needed a quick read because I stupidly forgot that the library would be closed yesterday for Veteran's Day. I'd exhausted my current supply, and I needed a short term fix to hold me until I could get some new product today. So I grabbed Of Mice and Men off the bookshelf last night. And I'm glad I d......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on November 17, 2020

I remember reading this at school at being completely uninterested in the story. I remember the teacher droning on about basic plot allegories before we read each section; she would tell us what certain things “meant” before we had even seen them. She would explain how this portrays a vital part of......more

Goodreads review by Vit on July 31, 2023

Of Mice and Men is a tale about the ultimate kindness - it is hard to talk about kindness without turning sentimental but John Steinbeck was the one who really could. His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. Si......more


Quotes

Of Mice and Men is a thriller, a gripping tale running to novelette length that you will not set down until it is finished. It is more than that; but it is that. . . . In sure, raucous, vulgar Americanism, Steinbeck has touched the quick in his little story.”—The New York Times

“Brutality and tenderness mingle in these strangely moving pages. . . . The reader is fascinated by a certainty of approaching doom.”—Chicago Tribune

”A short tale of much power and beauty. Mr. Steinbeck has contributed a small masterpiece to the modern tough-tender school of American fiction.”—Times Literary Supplement [London]