“Cannery Row in Monterrey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”

It is also a superb little novel by John Steinbeck that begins with that opening line. It is also, as Steinbeck writes in the next line, “the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop houses.”

Cannery Row is about this town, one that is full of people so ordinary even the simplest pleasure is a major event. Its key resident is Doc, a scientist who experiments with nature and holds the reverence of every single person in Cannery Row. They all owe him something, though few monetarily. Everyone seems to want to do good by Doc.

If you’ve never read Steinbeck, I wouldn’t recommend you start with Cannery Row. There are more iconic novels in his collection. But once you’ve finished with The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, I’d certainly suggest this member of the family.

Doc, in addition to being the most respected man in town, also loves hamburgers and beer. How often do those things go together?

In fact, on one of his trips to collect marine samples for his work, he makes several stops for such sustenance. He even once tries a beer milkshake for the sole reason that someone once joked he would, and he couldn’t get the idea out of his head. (Don’t try it).

After several of the beer stops (he’s driving himself hundreds of miles down California highways), he decides to pick up a hitch hiker to help pass the time. He carefully selects one who won’t talk too much and they get in the car. They drive a bit, only to stop for another beer. The hitch hiker suggests maybe it’s not such a good idea to drink and drive. Doc disagrees: “Get out of the car…I’m going to punch you in the nose if you aren’t out of this car by the time I count to ten.

It’s clear why Doc is the most respected man in town.

One of the things I love about Steinbeck is he always has chapters that have absolutely zero to do with the plot, but help give the character of the town. One in Cannery Row talks about a guy breaking his own record for ice skating on top of a pole in town. The whole town comes to watch as he stays up there day and night. Several chapters later, Steinbeck goes back to a random guy in town who can’t sleep. He’s tossing in turning, his mind churning over the possibilities of an unknown answer. So the man walks a distance into town and yells up at the sleeping skater. He wants to know how the man goes to the bathroom up on the pole. He walks back home, and climbs back in bed with his wife. “He’s got a can up there.”

Cannery Row is really a story about people trying to do well with what they have. But in the end, it’s also important to do things the right way as well. For these people who have so little, being respected–or at least as respected as they once were–is paramount.

The residents know they have to deal with one another so they accept certain realities in order to best get on with their own lives. The store owner who would like to continue his business without some thugs burning it down lets the men sleep in his extra house rent free. They talk at first about a monthly rate, but both know it is just a show.

The proprietor of the bordello pays exorbitant taxes and makes astronomical donations to every charitable event in town. She knows that’s the only way to keep the cops at bay and city leaders from banning her practice.

That’s life in Cannery Row.

Next Up: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Beautiful and Damned”

This has nothing to do with Eliot Spitzer or prostitutes.

Rather a politician who has not yet been linked to such a scandal, and hopefully never will. I just finished Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” which is book number four on the year if you are counting at home.

It took me a lot longer to read than I thought, mainly because of the density and thoroughness with which Obama tackles each subject. I’m certainly not complaining either, since it was nice to go so in-depth with where a candidate is coming from rather than relying on a third-party article or a soundbite.

If you don’t have the desire or the time to tackle the entire book, check it for a few days and read the chapters on Race and The World Beyond Our Borders. Obama discusses the challenges of race in America, and how the fight that reached its apex in the 1960s is far from over. He also talks about how those discussions and the outcomes of the civil rights movement are progressing into an America that is no longer a black-and-white discussion.

“Such a shift in emphasis is not easy: Old habits die hard, and there is always a fear on the part of many minorities that unless racial discrimination, past and present, stays on the front burner, white America will be let off the hook and hard-fought gains may be reversed. I understand these fears–nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line, and during difficult times it is possible that the imperatives of racial equality get shunted aside.”

It took me a while to pick out a section of this chapter. But the point of history sometimes have to move laterally, or even take a few steps back before moving forward the right way captures Obama’s point. Just before that paragraph, he talks about how to best address minority problems. His solutions include “strategies that help all Americans” to go after the underlying issues making it more difficult for portions of society to break out of cycles of self-defeat. Those are people of all backgrounds who end up “stuck” in situations that make it harder to achieve “success.”

“Schools that teach, jobs that pay, health care for everyone who needs it, a government that helps out after a flood, a long with measures that ensure our laws apply equally to everyone.”

Obama argues that some domestic failure is a product of kids who aren’t prepared for the structured environment of school because of broken homes from the start. They don’t end up with the qualifications to get jobs that pay well, or end up with criminal records that preclude certain fields. Without health insurance, they can’t afford preventive care or economically catastrophic medical bills.

I can’t fully do this section justice. A lot of interesting points informed by historical and economic measures.

Later Obama turns his attention to America’s place in the world. Again, an effective history makes his arguments poignant and relevant. He uses his experience growing up in Indonesia and the United States’ policies towards that nation as a microchasm of larger U.S. foreign policy.

After several years of toxic moves in relation to America’s image and influence by the current administration, Obama’s outlook is refreshing. He says it’s hard for the U.S. to demand other countries change standards and habits when it comes to environmental policy, nuclear disarmament, human rights and hostile regimes when we don’t lead the way in making those changes ourselves.

Obama lays out what he would do in Iraq and how he would work to reestablish America as a positive influence internationally.

Even if you disagree with his politics, or at least what you know, the book is certainly worth a read to better understand his positions. Obama is a great storyteller, using a plethora of history to weave lessons of the past into arguments of today in a thoughtful fashion.

Next up, “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck.

Any sports fan can tell you sometimes you watch a game just because you like the sport. It doesn’t matter who is playing, and thus you don’t really care who wins.

Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is like that. It’s hard to find someone to really get behind, but the event, the story is such that you still need to know what happens.

This is the first book in the project to be recommended by a friend. Well more like endorsed after I had selected it, but whatever. It’s always nice to know someone you can discuss a piece of art with, especially after you’ve invested so much energy in enjoying it yourself.

And especially when you’re trying to figure out who the “good” guy is in the story.

I can’t remember reading a book where the protagonist didn’t live up to the “pro” in his name. Maybe I’m completely blanking, but it seems to me the basic structure of effective storytelling in novels usually involves the reader’s support of the main character.

Dorian Gray is a hard guy to support. He’s rich. Everyone tells him he’s the most beautiful person they’ve ever seen. He doesn’t work. He’s moody. He’s incredibly vain. All he needs is a small dog to carry around everywhere and a catch phrase like “that’s dandy” to make him a 19th century British Paris Hilton.

And who wants to root for that? You’d be more likely to wish for his hansom to run off the side of a cobblestone street and run into a tree.

Yet Wilde creates this life for Gray and the people around him that is so intruiging you have to keep reading. Maybe it’s the fact that the obvious outcome is to have Gray or one of his cohorts to have some sort of revelation and become a good person. You want to see that happen as a confirmation that you’re on the right side of the moral fence.

If the Oscars were handed out to books in Wilde’s day, the Best Supporting Actor would go to the most pessimistic man ever written. Yet his diatribes are some of the best parts of the book:

“The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us…I have the greatest contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested.”

This is the epitome of Lord Henry. The first half of his speech is off-putting; what’s so wrong with having a positive outlook? Then he comes back with a better point about personal growth–it doesn’t matter what you are doing, just keep working at improving yourself in some way.

This is the man giving advice to “Paris.” It’s like having multiple people who are so rich they don’t have to work, who value beauty and societal stature above just about anything, who KNOW they are better than everyone and live with a complete disregard for normality all running around one of the world’s largest cities together. If only Wilde had written with a little more verisimilitude…

Quick side note, verisimilitude is one of my favorite words that you really have to try to incorporate in everyday use. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever done it. I’m excited. And to save you the trip to the dictionary website, it’s a noun meaning the depiction of reality (as in art or literature).

I took a chance in grabbing this one on a bookstore trip, expecting maybe a B experience. But Wilde delivered a solid A in one of the surprisingly good reads I’ve had in a while. If you like some of the “classic”–Dickens/Hugo-esque stuff, you’ll enjoy it.

Next up: Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”