What book are you reading?

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath. Chapter Twelve “Highway 66”
Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 - the long concrete path across the country, waving
gently up and down on the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield - over the red lands and the
grey lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and
terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich California
valleys.
66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of
tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting
winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal
what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66
from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the
mother road, the road of flight.
Clarksville and Ozark and Van Buren and Fort Smith on 62, and there's an end of Arkansas.
And all the roads into Oklahoma City, 66 down from Tulsa, 270 up from McAlester. 81 from
Wichita Falls south, from Enid north. Edmond, McLoud, Purcell. 66 out of Oklahoma City;
El Reno and Clinton, going west on 66. Hydro, Elk City, and Texola ; and there's an end to
Oklahoma. 66 across the Panhandle of Texas. Shamrock and McLean, Conway and Amarillo,
the yellow. Wildorado and Vega and Boise, and there's an end of Texas. Tucumcari and Santa
Rosa and into the New Mexican mountains to Albuquerque, where the road comes down from
Santa Fe. Then down the gorged Rio Grande to Los Lunas and west again on 66 to Gallup,
and there's the border of New Mexico.
And now the high mountains. Holbrook and Winslow and Flagstaff in the high mountains of
Arizona. Then the great plateau rolling like a ground swell. Ashfork and Kingman and stone
mountains again, where water must be hauled and sold. Then out of the broken sun-rotted
mountains of Arizona to the Colorado, with green reeds on its banks, and that's the end of
Arizona. There's California just over the river, and a pretty town to start it. Needles, on the
river. But the river is a stranger in this place. Up from Needles and over a burned range, and
there's the desert. And 66 goes on over the terrible desert, where the distance shimmers and
the black centre mountains hang unbearably in the distance. At last there's Barstow, and more
desert until at last the mountains rise up again, the good mountains, and 66 winds through
them. Then suddenly a pass, and below the beautiful valley, below orchards and vineyards
and little houses, and in the distance a city. And, oh, my God, it's over.
The people in flight streamed out on 66, sometimes a single car, sometimes a little caravan.
All day they rolled slowly along the road, and at night they stopped near water. In the day
ancient leaky radiators sent up columns of steam, loose connecting-rods hammered and
pounded. And the men driving the trucks and the overloaded cars listened apprehensively.
How far between towns? It is a terror between towns. If something breaks - well, if something
breaks we camp right here while Jim walks to town and gets a part and walks back and - how
much food we got?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9nuDE1SJlPo

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AqhQSfFtOVE

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

@itchmyTwitch
uggg... I'm in it too far to stop now!

R3d_butt3rfly_ wrote: »

One by One by Freida McFadden

Susanna527 wrote: »

R3d_butt3rfly_ wrote: »

One by One by Freida McFadden

She's one of my favorite authors!!! Turned a friend of mine onto her, too, and she loves her, as well 😊

itchmyTwitch wrote: »

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

@itchmyTwitch
uggg... I'm in it too far to stop now!

I’m loving it. It’s my kind of story. I’m finding so much of it relatable to what goes on now.