All the Hot Girls Will Be Reading John Steinbeck This Summer

You know how every summer, everyone is walking around with a big book like they all got an email that you didn’t, and the next thing you know, everyone has read the aforementioned big book while you’ve been plugging away at 120-page novels written by women in the 1960s who were maybe lesbian? And listen, sometimes the book isn’t even always that big. Sure, Lonesome Dove was a chunk, but the year or five that everyone was reading John Williams’s (not that one) Stoner (not that kind) was one of the more manageable iterations of this bizarre trend. All of which is to say: Memorial Day is right around the corner, the weather in New York might finally actually get nice and stay nice, and it’s time to start reading John Steinbeck.

The obvious reason: Zoe Kazan’s adaptation of East of Eden will be out on Netflix this fall, and it would be the perfect thing to be pedantic about for months on end with your friends and loved ones at dinner. Steinbeck’s epic is widely considered his best novel, and at around 650 pages, it’s a modest tome without being a nightmare to tote to the Rockaways. It tells the story of two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks, and it is based on and inspired by both Steinbeck’s maternal grandfather and the Bible. East of Eden also features Cathy — 2026’s second evil-ish Cathy — who is played by Florence Pugh in the miniseries and has some of the novel’s best scenes and lines. 2026: The year every woman wanted to be Cathy, and no, not that one. For what it’s worth, BookTok is already going nuts for East of Eden. Should its taste be trusted? Not always, but it’s right about The Secret History, and it’s right about Steinbeck too.

But you don’t have to stop with East of Eden. In fact, Steinbeck’s bibliography is kind of perfect for the feel-bad vibe that has set in this year. You could experience the profound joy and guilt of pet ownership in reading The Red Pony or catch up with your old high-school English teacher after you finally crack open Of Mice and Men. My personal favorite, The Grapes of Wrath, is slated for adaptation with Rolin Jones at the helm. Hmmm, a book about climate change, economic hardship, labor shortages, rising food prices, and a family having a horrible time? Feels strangely relevant, and toting that one around on the subway this summer could spark some inspiring conversations with strangers (or you can talk about whether Tom Joad is hot). And if that’s all too much of a bad vibe, you can always pick up Travels With Charley, Steinbeck’s nonfiction American travelogue about hitting the road with his dog. Regardless, there’s nothing that says “Steinbeck summer” like a society vaguely (or not so vaguely) in decline, so go snag your copy of East of Eden. Besides, you’ve got to have something to discuss with Mike Faist if you ever meet him on the street.