John Steinbeck

I'm saying nothing new here, but, John Steinbeck is such a beautiful writer. In his 1960 book Travels With Charley he travels across the United States (with his dog Charley), and writes about what he sees and who he meets. It's a really interesting book and one of my favorites of the year. To give you an example of his beautiful writing, here is what he wrote about the redwoods in Northern California (FYI, he grew up in Northern California):

I have had lifelong association with these things. (Odd that the word "trees" does not apply). I can accept them and their power and their age because I was early exposed to them. On the other hand, people lacking such experience begin to have a feeling of uneasiness here, of danger, of being shut in, enclosed, and overwhelmed. It is not only the size of these redwoods but their strangeness that frightens them. And why not? For these are the last remaining members of a race that flourished over four continents as far back in geologic time as the upper Jurassic period... And then the glaciers moved down and wiped the Titans out beyond recovery. And only these few are left -- a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago. Can it be that we do not love to be reminded that we are very young and callow in a world that was old when we came into it? And could there be a strong resistance to the certainty that a living world will continue its stately way when we no longer inhabit it?

Isn't that such a great reflection? And that's what he produces when he decides he wants to write something about the redwoods he saw. Where other people simply see redwoods, he sees the human fear of smallness and finiteness. Impressive.