The 25 Greatest Books of All Time Series: #25 The Grapes of Wrath

What are your top 25 greatest books of all time?

On Jacke's list at #25 is The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck's portrayal of the Joad family during the Great Depression is among America's finest literary narratives. In Episode 719, Jacke makes the case for the novel's inclusion on his 25 Greatest Books of All Time (GBOAT) list.

Among Steinbeck's lesser known works is Sweet Thursday (1954), which is a sequel to his well-known Cannery Row (1945) and a personal favorite. Sweet Thursday expands on the world inhabited by the characters of Cannery Row, but it offsets some of the darker elements by including a couple short chapters, or what Steinbeck calls hooptedoodles.

These Hooptedoodles provide a kind of pause to the main narrative. In "Hooptedoodle (1)," for example, Steinbeck considers how change happens or rather how you recognize that change has happened. He writes: "Looking back, you can usually find the moment of the birth of a new era, whereas when it happened, it was one day hooked on to the tail of another."