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The Pearl

Name: The Pearl
Rating: 3.56 (268644 reviews)
Author: John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck January 1, 1947

3.56 268.6k Ratings

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Synopsis

Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull’s egg, as “perfect as the moon.” With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security…

A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man’s nature, greed, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.

Books similar to The Pearl

Cannery Row

★ 4.06

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Cannery Row is a book without much of a plot. Rather, it is an attempt to capture the feeling and people of a place, the cannery district of Monterey, California, which is populated by a mix of those down on their luck and those who choose for other reasons not to live "up the hill" in the more respectable area of town. The flow of the main plot is frequently interrupted by short vignettes that introduce us to various denizens of the Row, most of whom are not directly connected with the central story. These vignettes are often characterized by direct or indirect reference to extreme violence: suicides, corpses, and the cruelty of the natural world.

The "story" of Cannery Row follows the adventures of Mack and the boys, a group of unemployed yet resourceful men who inhabit a converted fish-meal shack on the edge of a vacant lot down on the Row.

Sweet Thursday is the sequel to Cannery Row.

Gravity’s Rainbow

★ 4.01

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Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative, and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.

The Old Man and the Sea

★ 3.81

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Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.

As I Lay Dying

★ 3.72

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As I Lay Dying
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As I Lay Dying
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This edition reproduces the corrected text of
As I Lay Dying
as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.

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★ 4.05

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A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.

My Ántonia

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Alternate covers of this ISBN can be found here, here and here.

The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

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The Pearl

Books similar to The Pearl

Cannery Row

Gravity’s Rainbow

The Old Man and the Sea

As I Lay Dying

Libra

My Ántonia

The Great Gatsby

The Grapes of Wrath

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