You don’t always need a plane ticket to travel; sometimes, all you need is a book. Often, fiction books can help us explore worlds outside our own, take us out of life’s everyday tangles, and allow us to widen our perspective. Fourth stop, North America! We hope you enjoy this discussion about ‘Grapes of Wrath’ by John Steinbeck.

Published in 1939 and set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, The Grapes of Wrath follows one family’s repeated collisions with the hard realities of America at the time, and what emerges is an intensely human yet majestic, tragic, stirring view into those who find (or fail to find) dignity in hard times. A snapshot of the tension between high and low-class Americans, of one man’s inspired responses to injustice, and one woman’s unyielding courage, the novel probes the very core of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic tale, road novel, social commentary, and philosophical discussion, Steinbeck’s magnum opus may be the most American book in the canon of North America’s best literature.