I finished John Steinbeck’s “The Pastures of Heaven” several weeks ago, but have been wholly uninspired to post its requisite entry here.

That’s not a knock on the text itself; it’s just one of those that didn’t bring up much that had me thinking afterward. I only marked one page, and that was in the introduction section written by someone else.

It turns out that before becoming a successful writer, Steinbeck had some interesting jobs. After failing to establish his writing career in New York, he pushed wheelbarrows of concrete for the construction of Madison Square Garden. I don’t think you’ll see Stephenie Meyer doing that. (Sidenote: Stephenie with three E’s? Come on…)

Usually with authors I have read before, I mention the other works and link to those posts. But since I have quite a few Steinbeck books in my recent reading history I’ll point out the search function of the blog. It’s easy to miss, but in the top left there’s a box that searches my entire archives. So you could just plug in “Steinbeck” for those posts, or have some fun looking up things like “Helga” or “snow.”

Given that it’s Christmas Eve, I have a present for you (actually for my sister):

I spent a solid hour constructing it, and wish I took a picture of the underlying cardboard frame before I put the paper on. Probably safe to say she won’t guess what’s inside. Also safe to say I have too much time on my hands.