Of Mice and Men

by
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Of Mice and Men (Paperback, 1993, Penguin Books)

Paperback, 107 pages

English language

Published March 16, 1993 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-017739-8
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OCLC Number:
1003109997

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5 stars (3 reviews)

They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.

Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie’s unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

--back cover

63 editions

reviewed Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Classics should be this short always

4 stars

I picked this up because I'm on a mission to read more of the books other people think you should have read. I hope it improved me in some way, because, spoiler alert, it has a sad end. And you can see it coming for the whole time. And I don't know what the answer is for Lennie and George, but they didn't deserve this.

It's good. It's tense, and anxious, and you're waiting for the other shoe to drop all the way through, and then when it does, you're simultaneously shocked and horrified, but also, not remotely surprised.

It's short, though, so there's that. And next time someone sends me a list of 99 books I should have read by now, I can tick this one off.

reviewed Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Great

5 stars

The famous Mark Twain quote "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one" is now considered to be a misattribution, that Twain never said.

Nonetheless, whoever did say it - this book made me think of it. Truly it takes skill, craft, and artistry to write well and also be succinct.

This book feels perfect not because there's nothing else to add, but because there's nothing else to take away.

This book captured my imagination in 120 pages. And now it will stay with me for a while.

Subjects

  • Literature: Classics
  • Fiction
  • Literature - Classics / Criticism
  • Classics
  • Fiction / Literary