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    Of Mice and Men
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    Of Mice and Men
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    Of Mice and Men
    Audiobook3 hours

    Of Mice and Men

    Written by John Steinbeck

    Narrated by Gary Sinise

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    About this audiobook

    Of Mice and Men was John Steinbeck's first masterpiece. Originally published in 1937, it's the timeless story of George Milton and Lennie Small, ranch hands who drift from job to job, always one step ahead of the law and a few dollars from the poorhouse. George is small, wiry, sharp-tongued and quick-tempered; slow witted Lennie is his opposite—an immense man, brutishly strong but naturally docile, a giant with the mind of a child. Despite their difference, George and Lennie are bound together by a shared vision: their own small farm, where they'll raise cows, pigs, chickens, and rabbits, where they'll be their own bosses and live off the fat of the land.

    When they find work on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley, the dream at last seems within reach. If they can just save up a little money. . . . But their hopes, like "the best-laid schemes of mice and men," begin to go awry. The story unfolds with the power and inevitability of a Greek tragedy, as Lennie commits an accidental murder, and George, in a riveting, deeply moving finale, must do what he can to make things turn our right.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighBridge Audio
    Release dateApr 13, 2011
    ISBN9781101530900
    Author

    John Steinbeck

    John Steinbeck (Salinas, 1902 - Nueva York, 1968). Narrador y dramaturgo estadounidense. Estudió en la Universidad de Stanford, pero desde muy joven tuvo que trabajar duramente como albañil, jornalero rural, agrimensor o empleado de tienda. En la década de 1930 describió la pobreza que acompañó a la Depresión económica y tuvo su primer reconocimiento crítico con la novela Tortilla Flat, en 1935. Sus novelas se sitúan dentro de la corriente naturalista o del realismo social americano. Su estilo, heredero del naturalismo y próximo al periodismo, se sustenta sin embargo en una gran carga de emotividad en los argumentos y en el simbolismo presente en las situaciones y personajes que crea, como ocurre en sus obras mayores: De ratones y hombres (1937), Las uvas de la ira (1939) y Al este del Edén (1952). Obtuvo el premio Nobel en 1962.

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    Reviews for Of Mice and Men

    4/5

    259 ratings281 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Excellent story; gets to the hearts and minds of lonely men and friendship; as well as trying to do the right thing when confronted by meanness and just purely bad people; very sad but memorable; would love to see a modern movie remake of this if done well
    • 5/5
      A classic that is short but poignant. I listened to this in the car as an audiobook. The writing is beautiful, the characters well-developed, and the storyline moving. What more could you want?
    • 5/5
      Depressing, but very very good. First read it when I was doing my GCSEs, and never got to finish it, as far as I remember -- the class decided they preferred To Kill A Mockingbird, which was pretty good too, but I'd already read it. Sigh, etc. The trials of high school.

      One thing I noticed reading it this time is the level of detail. It just quietly builds up such vivid pictures.

      The last few pages are the biggest kick in the stomach ever.

      It's quick to read, but easy? I wonder.
    • 5/5
      I read it in a day, stopping to catch up my girlfriend on the plot a few times. It's not going to end well, I told her, it's really, really not going to end well. She hugged me at the end, when I cried like a big baby.
    • 5/5
      A great short read. The story was infinitely better than what I thought it would be. The connection and symbolism between Candy & his Dog and George & Lennie came as quite a shock and made me view George and Lennie in a new light. The book situated around different aspects of loneliness (of how some long for company, and others long for solitude) and how sometimes ridding yourself of burdens, no matter how painful and emotional it may be, is the only way to move on. The book was very moving and I definitely recommend this to any and everyone.
    • 5/5
      Wow, talk about a moving book. I am just reading this for the first time at 26 years old and I must say, I sobbed like a child at the end. Which was akward because I finished the book sitting in the middle of the Library with my collegues watching me...

      I want to start with how effortlessly Steinbeck wrote the story, or at least, I was able to read it effortlessly. The characters were so real that when reading you felt that you were part of the story. It was easy to place youself in the shoes of George and worry about Lennie and how to keep him out of trouble. Likewise, it was oddly easy to understand Lennie and feel for him.

      You felt like you were sitting around a small campfire warming beans with the men and sitting in Crook's room and chatting with an old friend, and you felt the despair Lennie felt when he accidently killed his little puppy, and his terror when he shook Curly's wife to death. You cried for Lennie when he ran away and cried with George when he described Lennie's heaven to him as he laid him to rest. The entire story you were rooting for the boys to finally work up enough money to buy a small patch of land that they could tend to and again cried with Candy when you realized with him that this dream would no longer happen.

      The level of detail and emotion that Steinbeck was able to convey in the short 186 pages of this book is nothing short of astounding. I have added this book to my "reread" list as well as my Amazon Wishlist to purchase in the near future.
    • 4/5
      It just was a sad story. A person may be sad because he's poor, has no family, has no clear future, or has a troubled family/friend. Candy, his old dog, George and Lennie... The story tells me well of the sadness of those poor people who work at a ranch without family or a real friend. And life, its worth & its end.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Gut-wrenching, suspense-building, heart-breaking and all in under 100 pages. Genius.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this one and think it might deserve a 5th star once I've had some time to reflect on it. It's a really short and simple story but told amazingly well and in a manner that made it impossible for me to look away. Lennie and George are two excellently developed characters and I loved all their reactions. The book is both witty and sad and extremely powerful. The ending wasn't what I expected and came as a shock. Overall it's a well told story that is sure to stick with me for a long time.
    • 1/5
      I did not like the language. Most of the main characters kept taking the Lord's name in vain and it is not for me, no matter how famous an author is.
    • 3/5
      I wan't all that impressed, but then again I was forced to read it for school. But it IS a classic, and tells of a troubled time in our history. It's just not my genre of choice.
    • 5/5
      Even if you've heard how it ends, this is still a great book. The title indicates as readers we should be on the lookout for any mention of mice and what comparisons are being drawn with men. Typically this comparison is used with bravery versus cowardice, but here it's employed as foreshadowing. George mutters how much easier his life would be without Lennie, as he throws away Lennie's dead mouse. This motif repeats later with Candy's dog in place of the mouse, putting another creature out of its misery. There's fair warning that the story is heading toward a dark end, since most of the people in the story are miserable too.The misery is built on loneliness. Candy and Crooks express their jealousy of Lennie's companionship with George, seeking to obtain a role in its expansion that will encompass them. Even Slim, the story’s most even-keeled character who has his one-man-act together for now, admires it. George is aware of the value of Lennie's companionship, though perhaps without realizing it fully for lack of the personal experience shared by the other characters of traveling a lonely road. Lennie doesn't wish to even imagine a life without George, but he has no concept of what the others are suffering. By novel's end the circle is revealed: loneliness and the inability to escape a transitive life feed into one another. A correction in one half may correct the other, but not in this cycle.
    • 5/5
      Of Mice and Men is an excellent historical novel that dives right in to the relationship between Lenny, a mentally ill man, and George, a man who looks after Lenny despite the trouble Lenny gets them both into. The novel describes the harsh work environment and cycle of poverty of farm workers in the Great Depression. Lenny lacks self-control in times of stress and confusion and this is when he becomes dangerous to the people around him. The novel brings to light the oppressive conditions that women, African Americans, the elderly, and the mentally ill forced to live in. One theme that struck me as I read this book was the fact that all of the characters felt varying degrees of loneliness. I think this theme could be explored in a humanities unit on oppressed and marginalized individuals, who are left with no one because they are so segregated. Of Mice and Men could be a great mentor text for this humanities unit, particularly when we highlight the lives of Lenny, Candy, Curley's wife, and Crooks. Grade level: Grade 8.1
    • 5/5
      I read this a long time ago and it will always stick with me. I learned alot about the Depression Era, was impressed with this story of friendship and responsiblity and being "thy brother's keeper".
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite books that I read in high school. I love the story liine because it is very easy to follow. This book teaches students about friendship and how to help one another out. I would defiantly recomend this book to people because this book is a classic and should be read. I would definantly read this book to my students because I feel that it is very important for my students to be familiar with great works of literature.
    • 4/5
      This book had an eerie ring of truth to it. The futile illusiveness of the American Dream, the vanity of man, the lust for pleasure, the pride of life. It seemed fitting that Steinbeck painted a dark world of humanity with bright strokes of color. His descriptions of characters, nature, and surroundings were remarkable. Steinbeck's characters seemed to possess brokenness of the world and the dignity inherent in mankind.
    • 5/5
      I don't understand the seeming universal hatred of this book. I've never met anyone who likes it. Personally, I find this a work of brilliance. I consider this a must read.
    • 4/5
      I thought it was powerful despite its simplicity at first value, raw yet gentle, cursory yet impressive. I also thought it was a nice built, going from the death of the mouse to the death of the puppy to the death of Curley's wife to ultimately Lennie's death.I love how it is clear why George does it in the end without it ever being mentioned. I thought it was a strong moment as it was the ultimate friendship - he wanted to spare Lennie from the humiliation and lynching that would follow, because Lennie wouldn't understand anyway.There was also this message that murder is not always a result of bad intentions. Lennie always meant well - he didn't mean to kill Curley's wife. It shows there is a lot more to murder than the act itself. Also the fact that in the end, they don't live their dream. They never achieve having their own piece of land. It shows that however strong dreams are, reality still has a damn good way of preventing them from happening. That sometimes, things *are* too good to be true.
    • 5/5
      This is such a touching story about friendship, maybe the most touching story I've ever read about two best friends. I'm not really a crier, but I've never cried so much while reading a book as I did while reading this one. I even cried when Stephen King talks about this book in his latest 11/22/63. This is simply a wonderful story abut two friends making their way through difficult times and what happens along the way.
    • 4/5
      Set in Steinbeck’s native Californian Salinas Valley, Of Mice and Men tells the story of George and Lennie, two itinerant ranch hands who have nothing in the world except each other and a shared dream. Lennie is a giant of a man who possesses the strength of a bull and the mentality of a small child. George is Lennie’s ever-faithful friend and guardian. Living in a world where most men have no families, roots, or anything to look forward to, George and Lennie’s vision for their future and loyalty to each other sets them apart: “Ain’t many guys travel around together,” he mused. “I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” Things go pretty well for Lennie and George on the new ranch where they find employment until the childlike actions of Lennie threaten the dream they’ve held on to together for so long and George is called upon to make a prompt and very painful decision. Of Mice and Men is Steinbeck’s parable which brings to light our intrinsic need for dreams and our connections to each other. Profound, beautiful and real, I cannot recommend this one highly enough.
    • 4/5
      My third reading of this jewel of literature revealed to me an entirely new story. On previous readings, I had focused on the main characters of Lennie, the slow-witted gentle giant who's strength is his downfall, and George, his sharp, faithful friend and companion. Previously, my interest was completely taken up with the story and the progression of events; Lennie and George making their way to a new farm for employment after having experiencing trouble in their previous gig and the tragedy that unfolds blow by blow from the moment they arrive to the new place till the very sad, dramatic ending. But this time I was more interested in the various elements that made up this timeless tale; how each of the characters play a vital role in a tight construction that leaves no room for irrelevant anecdotes, yet allows each individual to be fleshed out with dreams, motivations, histories and personalities. How even the saddest and ugliest of events were told with such empathy as to give them poignant beauty. The themes of loneliness, the need for connection and belonging, for being useful and needed, the cycles of birth and death, violent impulses alongside loving mercy, all revealed themselves with such potency that I felt almost like a voyeur, seeing far too much of the human condition, which Steinbeck reveals to us in a compact tale that seems to take up a much greater space than the few pages it occupies. But all that pain made it almost an unbearable read this time. Beautiful and sad. True, and impossibly tragic.
    • 4/5
      When John Steinbeck wasn't trying too hard to propagandize (as in, say, The Pearl, or The Grapes of Wrath), sometimes he could tell a really good story. That is certainly the case in Of Mice and Men, which has excellent characterization and the closest thing to a plot that Steinbeck got until much later in his career. While it has many of the same thematic elements as his other books from this period, it can best be read as a story about friendship, having someone else with whom to share the joys and sorrows of life. Of course, for Steinbeck, it is mostly sorrows---it is a tragedy, after all, and a particularly depressing one. One could argue that the ending isn't entirely bitter, but bittersweet, since Lenny's end is at least a happy one (or at least as happy as George is able to contrive for him given the circumstances)...but the real tragedy lies in George's fate. Still, this is a somewhat remarkable novel from Steinbeck, well crafted and immensely powerful. This is one that you will keep coming back to, as I have a couple of times since I first read it in school (one of the very few books I had to read for school that I actually enjoyed). Steinbeck surpassed Of Mice and Man probably only with East of Eden.
    • 5/5
      I just love this book. Over the years I have read it again and again, and each time I feel as if I come away with something different. The disillusionment is what got me this time. George wants so badly to be able to make everything right for Lenny; he wants him to have the dream that he, George, paints with words for him. And yet, George understands deep down that they will never make it to that dream. Still, he refuses to just give up. Like many of Steinbeck's characters, George is powerless to effect the change that he wants; he cannot change their circumstances. And yet he does not give into despair; every day he gets up and once again applies himself to creating and maintaining a rhythm for Lenny. He reminds Lenny that life is fragile while also accepting and acknowledging that Lenny, too, is fragile - he has the mind of a young boy trapped within the body of a grown man whose strength is his biggest weakness. This cannot end any other way than badly - we know it, and George knows it."George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. 'Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to.'Lennie was delighted. 'That's it---that's it. Now tell how it is with us.'George went on. 'With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don't have to sit on no bar room blown' in our jack jus' because we got no other place to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.'Lennie broke in. 'But not us! An' why? Because ...because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.' He laughed delightedly.'Go on now, George!''You got it by heart. you can do it yourself.''No, you. I forget some a' the things. Tell about how it's gonna be.''O.K. Someday--we're gonna get the jack together and we're gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs and--''An' live off the fatta the lan', Lennie shouted. 'An' have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we're gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.'"
    • 5/5
      [Of Mice and Men] by John SteinbeckFirst line~ A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hill-side bank and runs deep and green ~Tragic. Beautiful.This book is about unfulfilled dreams. Dreams of independence, Dreams of a better life. Of security. Of self-respect. Acceptance. Fame. Love.Each character is striving to find something they do not have or to be something that they are not. And each one is powerless over their circumstances.There is anger, bitterness, jealousy, hate, ignorance, loneliness, prejudice, and inhumanity.And, yet, there is love, compassion, companionship, kindness.I am in awe of John Steinbeck. Profound storytelling in very few words.5.0 stars
    • 5/5
      Steinbeck is better at breaking the reader's heart than just about anyone. Once again, the Nobel Prize winner uses spare and beautiful language to tell a simple tale of hope, despair, longing, and friendship. 105 of the best pages I've ever read.
    • 3/5
      George and Lenny are farm workers who travel together, Lennie is "slow" and George takes care of him. They were forced to flee from the last farm they worked on because Lennie had an incident with a girl that could have got him in a lot of trouble. The two men dream of having their own land and Lennie constantly wants George to tell him about the crops they will have and the rabbits that Lennie will take care of as Lennie has a passion for furry things.Lennie and George get a job working on a new farm and right off I got a feeling that things were not going to go well for them. The farm has a rich cast of characters and while Lennie and George's dream bring hope to the book, the background of the novel speaks of great depression.This was a relatively short novel but it packs quite an emotional punch. I have yet to find a Steinbeck novel that I didn't feel strong emotions while reading and I just love how straightforward his prose is.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful, and very impressive. You know from the very beginning that the story just can't end well...And in a way it doesn't, and the ending is sad, but on the other hand, the ending is also very beautiful, and maybe it's better for Lenny to die in peace than to live in a world that doesn't understand him...
    • 5/5
      Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is set in California during the Great Depression. George is a smart man who is small in stature. George travels with Lennie who is large and very dumb, but is a good, strong worker and who never means any harm. The two go to a ranch for work. At the ranch they meet other migrant workers who are friendly, but Curly, the sun of the ranch’s owner, has it out for Lennie, because Curly doesn’t like guys that are bigger then he is. George does his best to keep Lennie out of trouble. The cover is from the perspective of behind of Lennie and George sitting on a hill. The cover is simple and, but still portrays the friendship that George and Lennie have. Everyone should read this book. The book is short and easy to read. It has something to offer anyone who reads it. It touches on subjects very relevant to everyone’s lives.
    • 5/5
      Mr. Steinbeck managed to write extraordinarily rich, full depth characters of George and Lennie in this novelette length – focusing on only a few days of their lives. Yet, you feel as though you know them; this unlikely pair that had found family in each other. A heart-warming AND heart-breaking story pulls you in; you cheer for their hopes and dreams, and you cringe – when the inevitable happens.Kindness, gentleness, innocence come in different forms. In George, we find the kind, if frustrated, protector of Lennie, after picking on the gentle, but mentally challenged, Lennie, once too many. In Lennie, we find child-like innocence. In Slim, we find a true gentle-man (and leader) who sees through the surface and recognizes Lennie to be a “nice fella”. Having seen this in a play not too long ago, I returned to the written words, reliving this story in my mind. In my heart, George, Lennie, and Candy did in fact “live on the fatta the lan’.”
    • 4/5
      At first I wasn't sure if I'd like it at first because it is required reading for school but I actually really enjoyed the story. This book is about two men George and Lennie, who are poor and they need to get a job to save up some money so they can fulfill their dream of owning a farm. I know it sounds sort of boring and cheesy but like I said I ended up enjoying the series. Lennie is my a man who has a bit of a mental issue. He can work and earn his money but he can't do much when it comes to using his brain. (I'm not saying that in an insulting way) Lennie is a sweet guy who just wants to work to get all of the money he needs to be able to tend the rabbits! You'd understand if you read the book and those of you who have should know because that’s a huge part in the book. George is basically Lennies protector. They've known each other ever since they were kids. Even though George might not always have been so nice which you'll find out in the book. He looks out for Lennie now. He is the smallest out of the two but that’s okay because he only uses his brains really not much of his strength. These two men get kicked out of where they worked before because Lennie didn't know what he was doing and he grabbed on to some girls dress and didn't let go even when she screamed. She accused him of rape and so they had to run away before they were caught. That is their back story, In the beginning of the book they start working at a ranch so they can make some money to finally be able to have the farm they've always wanted. Along the way though they meet some people and face some problems. Some of the characters are Candy a sweet old man who just basically wants to work eat and live. Slim who is basically the respected guy buy all the other men he's sort of the leader. Then Curley who is basically the problem starter in the book he’s the bosses son and he’s always picking fights. Lastly there’s Curley’s wife who is also a huge problem starter in the book which you’ll find if you read the book! I recommend it to people who just need a quick fun little book to read. It teaches some lessons and shows you what times were like back then which Is sort of cool to read about in these days.