After nearly a year of pecking away at it, I finally finished Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Worth reading, but not a feel good story, though I'm not sure any of his books have chipper endings. I believe he might be better at the shorter length novels, Of Mice and Men was great. Wrath was great too, just much longer. Whoa, what an ending. A small criticism of the great writer ... why leave Tom Joad kind of hanging. Nearly the entire story centers on him and then he fades from story and has nothing directly to do with the very end at all. Maybe he served as the driving force, took the family as far as he could before having to go on the lamb and leave the others to their own devices.