In Steinbeck’s Imaginarium, Robert DeMott delves into the imaginative, creative, and sometimes neglected aspects of John Steinbeck's writing. DeMott positions Steinbeck as a prophetic voice for today as much as he was for the Depression-era 1930s as the essays explore the often unknown or unacknowledged elements of Steinbeck’s artistic career that deserve closer attention. He writes about the determining scientific influences, such as quantum physics and ecology, in Cannery Ro...

[Steinbecks Typewriter: Essays on His Art] collects several of DeMotts finest essays on Steinbeck... [that are] so carefully revised as to warn other critics seeking their own collected essay volume of the difference between a genuinely lapidary compilation and a kitchen midden. Illustrated with some rare photos, this collection is especially notable...John Ditsky, Choice...Steinbecks Typewriter... stands as the most in-depth treatment of Steinbecks aesthetics, particularly ...

“From the very first, it seems, fishing was a respite and a therapy along with all of its other potentially redemptive qualities.” —Robert DeMottSpanning more than forty-five years, Angling Days is a collection of Robert DeMott’s numerous journal entries, each a small essay in itself, jotted down during the placid moments of fishing in and along the streams and rivers of North America. Through his journaling, DeMott carries on the angling tradition of chan...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsFirst published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel we...

Set in familiar Steinbeck country, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man’s attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God and the forces of the unconscious within. This edition features an introduction and notes by Steinbeck scholar Robert DeMott.Ancient pagan beliefs, the great Greek epics, and the Bible all inform this extraordinary novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, which occupied him for...

A Penguin ClassicIn Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad. Returning to the scene of Cannery Row—the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears—from Doc, based on Steinbeck’s lifelong friend Ed Ricketts, to Fauna, new headmistress of the local brothe...

Conversations with Jim Harrison, Revised and Updated offers a judicious selection of interviews spanning the writing career of Jim Harrison (1937–2016) from its beginnings in the 1960s to the last interview he gave weeks before his death in March 2016. Harrison labeled himself and lived as a “quadra-schizoid” writer. He worked in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and screenwriting, and he published more than forty books that attracted an international following. These interviews supply...

John Steinbeck's powerful evocation of the suffering and hardship caused by the Great Depression, and a panoramic vision of the struggle for the American Dream, The Grapes of Wrath includes a critical introduction by Robert DeMott in Penguin Modern Classics. 'I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.' Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning epic The Grapes of Wrath remains his undisputed ma...

This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about one of the world’s most solitary and satisfying sports: fly fishing. For the first time, the stories of thirty-one acclaimed writers including Kim Barnes, Walter Bennett, Russell Chatham, Guy de la Valdène, Robert DeMott, Chris Dombrowski, Ron Ellis, Jim Fergus, Kate Fox, Charles Gaines, Bruce Guernsey, Jim Harrison, Pam Houston, Michael Keaton, Greg Keeler, Sydney Lea, Ted Leeson, Nic...

Guy de la Valdène’s beautifully written essay (and first book) is an ode to an iconic bird, part natural history, and part hunting memoir. It’s a well-regarded and undisputed classic—an edgy, elegant examination of the habits and history of a reclusive gamebird, the Woodcock, native to Europe and North America, a bird that’s been hunted and celebrated since Roman times. Valdène writes exuberantly of the bird, the hunt, and the feast, gracefully balancing the obsessions of a naturalist, spo...

Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.

This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about every outdoorsman’s favorite and most loyal hunting partner: his dog. For the first time, the stories of acclaimed writers such as Tom Brokaw, Howell Raines, Rick Bass, Sydney Lea, Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, and Chris Camuto, come together in one collection. Hunters and non-hunters alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of owning dogs: companionship, triumph...