On Sale: Sep 8, 2026
Page Count: 308 pages
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN-13: 9781643265940

$15.99

$20.99 CAD

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Digital download $15.99 $20.99 CAD
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From one of the foremost scholars on the subject, comes our most in-depth look at John Steinbeck as a writer deeply connected to the natural world.

Among the many reasons that John Steinbeck has ascended to the highest tier of the American Literary Canon is his championing of the working man.
What we don’t often consider, however, is that his vision as a writer was fundamentally ecological, looking at man and nature holistically. To understand people, you had to know something about the trees and flowers they planted, the soil they tilled, the geography that shaped their consciousness—the animating spirit of place.

Steinbeck's Landscapes highlights the environments that the Noble Prize winning author cherished and explored throughout his life and career, and examines the iconic stories those rivers, valleys, plants, animals, and weather patterns inspired. The result is a new and fuller understanding of Steinbeck’s work, and how nature serves to reflect, cast a harsh light upon, or magnify the action. As this fully illustrated treasure shows, for Steinbeck, the world around us fundamentally shapes human experience and the human spirit. All life is connected.

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Susan Shillinglaw, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of English at San Jose State University, where she taught American and Western literature for 37 years. For 18 years she was Director of the University’s Center for Steinbeck Studies, where she edited a newsletter and organized several international conferences. In 2013 she was honored as SJSU President’s Scholar. From 2015-18 she was Director of Salinas’s National Steinbeck Center.

“An enthralling portrait of the places that shaped John Steinbeck and his work. Sumptuously illustrated, Steinbeck's Landscapes pairs the author’s beloved homeland with the books from which it is inseparable. An affecting and deeply evocative book.”
William Souder, author of Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck
“John Steinbeck is lucky that fate selected Susan Shillinglaw to tend the garden of his legacy. She has listened to the wind in the trees, and felt the dirt underneath the feet of his characters. She has eaten the mushrooms on the ground and touched the squirmy intertidal critters of his heart’s home. This is a lovely and wise book because no one knows Steinbeck’s world better than Susan Shillinglaw.”
John Straley, author of Big Breath In and former Alaska Writer Laureate
“Susan Shillinglaw has peered into the Steinbeck legacy through so many lenses that she has redefined the legacy of his lifework. Through her eyes, you will see Steinbeck in an altogether distinctive light. ”
Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Water in the Desert: A Pilgrimage
“Steinbeck’s Landscapes captures Shillinglaw’s own love of place and of this author. Passages from texts are meticulously chosen and surrounded by images of California’s history and landscape—an almost magical place of great beauty.”
Barbara A. Heavilin, Editor-in-Chief, Steinbeck Review
“Steinbeck’s Landscapes is at once travel narrative, literary study, and intimate biography—richly imbued with the colors, textures, and spirit of the California terrain, and the far-flung places beyond it, that shaped the life and imagination of John Steinbeck . . . an essential read for scholars, admirers, and anyone seeking to understand Steinbeck more deeply."
Katie Rodger, editor of Ed Ricketts’s letters and essays: Renaissance Man of Cannery Row and Breaking

Susan Shillinglaw

About the Author

Susan Shillinglaw, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of English at San Jose State University, where she taught American and Western literature for 37 years. For 18 years she was Director of the University’s Center for Steinbeck Studies, where she edited a newsletter and organized several international conferences. In 2013 she was honored as SJSU President’s Scholar. From 2015-18 she was Director of Salinas’s National Steinbeck Center.

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