Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

"Cannery Row in Monterey California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." -John Steinbeck Cannery Row This book is fiction, though in reality the place and the people are all real, written about a place Steinbeck lived and the people he knew there. The book was required reading for me in college before I went and spent a spring term studying Marine Biology in Monterey just down the street from Cannery Row itself. As we'd go out collecting animals from the same tidepools, I liked to imagine that my professor was Doc himself, the good parts about him at least. The place has changed from a row of factories to a tourist town, but many of the buildings and feelings the surroundings give are the same and reading this book brings back magical memories in my mind of one of the most wonderful summers in my life. It was almost like we read the book and then lived out our own version of it for a summer. Obviously everyone won't have the same feelings about this book as I have, but I still love it, the characters, the descriptions, and the ideals of a simple life in a friendly community, making do with what you have and enjoying it. Don't expect much of a plot, it's more about a place that Steinbeck loved and him trying to convey the feelings it created. I get it, maybe it's because I also experienced and fell in love with the same place, but hopefully you guys can relate to it on some level. Enjoy!