Tortilla Flat
Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a "Camelot" on a shabby hillside above Monterey on the California coast and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. As Steinbeck chronicles their thoughts and emotions, temptations and lusts, he spins a tale as compelling, and ultimately as touched by sorrow, as the famous legends of the Round Table. This is the first of a trilogy, along with 'Cannery Row' and 'Sweet Thursday.'
Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
3people
2013–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- For me, it's Steinbeck. I think his novels capture the uniqueness American spirit, good and bad. Generosity and stubbornness, a contrast of high ideals and actions that don't always live up to them, but sometimes surpass them. They are practical stories about real people we've probably met but don't fully understand.
Cannery Row, To a God Unknown and Tortilla Flat are easy to read examples of this if you don't want to commit to East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. Travels with Charley is also a log of America in the 60s, even if you take it as a novel.
I can't argue against Whitman though.
- Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5), Bukowski (Postman). Steinbeck (Tortilla flat). All their stuff is good, but those are my favorites :)
- 1. Nexus (Ramez Naam)
2. Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)
3. The Fellowship of the Ring (J. R. R. Tolkien)
4. The Sin of Certainty (Peter Enns)
5. The Bible Tells Me So (Peter Enns)
6. Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations
7. Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)
8. Elantris (Brandon Sanderson)
9. A Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami)
10. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (Haruki Murakami)
11. Freedom TM (Daniel Suarez)
12. Lightning (Dean Koontz)
13. Daemons (Daniel Suarez)
14. Foundation and Earth (Isaac Asimov)
15. Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury)
16. Fear and Loathing in Las Veges (Hunter S. Thompson)
17. Foundation's Edge (Isaac Asimov)
18. The Doors of Perception (Aldous Huxley)
19. Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)
20. Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck)
21. The Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson)
