Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Like most students, I had to study this book for my GCSE's. I had a really flamboyant English teacher who would make everyone get up and act out the scenes and was a really good teacher, getting everybody interested in the book and doing his best to make everyone understand the themes etc. It took me a while to get this book, (I had a habit of switching off at school!) but by the end of the term just when I was taking my exams in it, I began to see why it was such a great read. The fact that I managed to get an A* didn't hurt my opinion of the book either! A little about John Steinbeck- The ... more

It is often viewed as a “bad” thing when a novel finds itself on the GCSE list. There is the danger of being sucked into the opinion that it is a “school” book suitable only for spotty teenagers who (from their parent’s point of view) are thinking about things they shouldn’t be. ‘Of Mice and Men’ is NOT one of these. The story concerns two men who travel together seeking manual work during the depression in the US. They are very different characters both physically and mentally. In many ways they are photographic opposites: George Milton is small and trim with angular features and a sharp mind ... more

Nick Hornby calls Of Mice and Men a "perfect book". Granted, if hyperbole and overstatement belong anywhere, it's on the front covers and dust jackets of novels, but this is lofty praise nonetheless. Like Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and any number of other classics, John Steinbeck's novella (a slim fellow at a little over 100 pages in length) has become a firm favourite in school reading lists and examinations, and as is the way in these situations, potential readers may have been turned off by months of forced digestion and laboured analysis. This though would be a shame; as Hornby ... more

The original manuscript of this popular little novel came to a sorry end when Steinbecks dog decided it would make a tasty snack! But Steinbeck did not give up, instead he re-wrote the whole thing from memory. In 1937 his hard work paid of when his novel, intended to create awareness of the Californian labouring classes, was published. Nowadays the short novel has become a set GCSE text for many school students, such as myself. I can't say that I was terribly inspired to read this book after studying the history of it, but when we began reading it my opinion of it changed. The story begins ... more

Ah yes another book review! Well I thought I might as well write it on this as it would help me on what I know of the story as well as make it a great read for you ciao readers -*~+BACKGROUND INFORMATION+~*- Of Mice and Men is a classic story written by John Ernst Steinbeck a.k.a John Steinbeck, based around the time of the Wall Street crash in 1929, when unemployment, harsh poverty and failed businesses were at its highest. Workers would migrate to California as droughts threatened states like Oklahoma and Arkansas. The only jobs available to them were in the ranches which paid poorly and ... more