This is Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, and in his opinion, his finest work. ("I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.") My high school English teacher assigned us The Grapes of Wrath instead, so I didn't read this until a few years ago. The title references the fall of Adam and Eve, and the subsequent embattled relationship between brothers Cain and Abel. Grounded thoroughly in its California setting, interweaving the stories of two Salinas Valley families, Steinbeck's magnum opus feels tragic, yet hopeful.

This is Steinbeck's epic tale of the Great Depression and the great Dust Bowl Migration of the 1930s, told through the eyes of one downtrodden Oklahoma farm family. This Pulitzer winner is sweeping and evocative, packed with unforgettable images, bursting with meaning. Powerful and tragic, with an absolutely haunting ending that holds forth the tiniest glimmer of hope.

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're picturing Landry and Tim Riggins discussing this novel on the Dillon High School bleachers. This is Steinbeck's story of two friends searching for work and the American Dream, and it's been repeatedly banned and continues to be challenged today for a wide variety of reasons: profanity, vulgarity, sexual themes, racism, an "anti-business attitude," and euthanasia.

From the publisher: "Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life—a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South—which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand—Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade."