The portable Steinbeck Author:John Steinbeck This volume is the best introduction or reintroduction to Steinbeck. Introduced usefully by the son of his long-time editor, the book includes fairly stand-alone section of his big California novels, In Dubious Battle, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden. I find the selections and the novels from which they were lifted overly rhetorical and pr... more »efer the tighter, shorter works. The Portable Steinbeck includes the full texts of Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony (about both of which I have written separate epinions), along with three other stories from the one collection of Steinbeck short stories, The Long Valley, and three of the stories relating disruptions to illusory beliefs by a new-to-the-valley family in The Pastures of Heaven.« less