June 10 through August 30 – East of Eden by John Steinbeck
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Today is Day One of our second sync read, which is designed to be stress-free and place the focus on reading together, rather than completing assignments. (Unless that’s your thing.)
It’s also cleverly designed to keep your moderators from tearing out their hair doing research. So it’s about you, and the book. And you.
Are you reading? Weigh in below — chat, leave a link to your post if you wrote something, read quietly if you prefer to keep to yourself but love knowing you’re reading with others, even silently. Weigh in here and say nothing at your blog. Whatever suits your personality.
There is no Mr. Linky below because the point in this feature is to talk together in a central place, and list our blogs if it comes up. (Which is of course welcome.)
Tell us if you’re excited, if you know some background on Steinbeck you want to share, if you have read the novel before and plan to redip with the group, if you feel sentimental about the read for any reason (maybe the book was a family member’s favorite), if you read it in college and want to try it again on your own, if you’ve never read it and don’t know what it’s about but it’s on your list so you’re reading it. Etc.
Is this your first Steinbeck? Have you read a biography? Can you recommend an edition or an adaption? That sort of thing. 🙂
We’ll toss up another post on June 30 and August 5 to see how the read is going, and one more on August 30 for the finish. Subscribe to the comments below to follow the discussion.
(No spoilers please!) – And it’s no pressure here! Feel free to weigh in in a week or nine months, if you like.
– The Club
(2013 Sync Schedule) / Twitter hashtag: #ccsyncread (so we can group chat!)
The Classics Club 
This book is amazing so far!!! Because I don’t have lots of time to sit and read I’m part listening to the audiobook, part reading my hard copy. I’m really looking forward to seeing where Steinbeck takes this story 🙂
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I’m on page 133. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed reading it so far. When first beginning I was not sure if I would. I was a bit unsure of where the author was taking me in his story, which may be apart of his plan. (I hope that made sense.)
I just wanted to ask one question to anyone who has began reading. Have you noticed that Steinbeck’s female characters are extreme in one direction or the other?
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I would love to join you on this sync read, but my spin book (Tess of the D’Urbervilles) is taking me longer to read than I thought (could be because i’m also reading Claire Tomalin’s biography on Hardy at the same time!)
I read East of Eden about 15 years ago and LOVED it. It’s still my favourite Steinbeck so I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts and reading your reviews 🙂
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I’ll try to join the sync read too. Steinbeck is one of my fav authors. I’ve read east of Eden a couple of years ago but I feel like a reread would be a good idea.
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I’m going to try to read this with everyone.
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This is the first book I’ve read by Steinbeck. I have East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath sitting on my bookshelf. The sync-read has motivated me to begin reading East of Eden. I read the first 34 pages last night, including the introduction.
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I’m going to try to join in on this! Not sure when I’ll start reading, but I’ve been kind of waiting for a readalong-type of situation to come up to start East of Eden.
I read The Grapes of Wrath for the first time last year I think, and it was interesting… although I had a few issues with it. Can’t wait to see what this one is like!
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