John Steinbeck

This light-hearted journal tells of John Steinbeck's fishing trip with Ed Ricketts. Combining science and adventure, Steinbeck voices his deeply-held views of man's place in the natural world.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Andrew John Kinney

I wanted to like this book, I really did, because I love the sea, I like most of Steinbeck's writing, and I love sailing (or in this case, motoring), but I could not do it. There were way, way too many "Today we collected many annelid worms of the genus Chlotydia, along with many of the large red and black articulated brittle sea stars" type paragraphs in the main part of the book, and way too little good story telling to redeem the boring parts. Also, the book was written in 1940, and the moral relativism that Steinbeck exhibits with WWII raging in Europe and Asia is a little off-putting. Also, it was written in the era before humans realized they could in fact damage the planet with their wanton depredations, and the sheer scale of the killing of sea animals for collecting or sport by the crew does not age well as literature. The one part of this book that sparkles as some of Steinbeck's best writing can is the Appendix about Ed Ricketts. In my opinion, skip the rest and read the appendix.

One thing I did gain from wading manfully through Steinbeck's (overly) detailed descriptions of sea life is how much poorer we are now. He describes hordes of jumping swordfish, many, many huge manta rays, dolphins, etc seen from the deck of the boat. And these were daily events. I've done a fair amount of offshore sailing, and it's not that way now, I can tell you, so Steinbeck's book is in a sense a record of a lost world.

Gabe Cortez

Jocelyn Chuang

Robyn Campbell

Edward Flanders Ricketts

Today, nearly forty years after his death, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. Over the next year, his many works published as black-spine Penguin Classics for the first time and will feature eye-catching, newly commissioned art. Penguin Classics is proud to present these seminal works to a new generation of readers ;and to the many who revisit them again and again.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez

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