Even after a puppy chomped on it, and though its pages are now so dry and brittle that small pieces crumble under my fingers, I keep reading the same copy. I own four copies of Cannery Row, but the one I read is a dog-eared 1959 paperback that I bought at a second-hand store. Sometimes I read it in one sitting, other times in small bits over a few days. I especially like to read it in the summer, and I like it best on a day when time stretches the way it did when you were a kid and a sunny afternoon feels as though it could last forever. I read Cannery Row once a year, sometimes more. (A 2005 news story about Ricketts's enduring fan base described him as "probably the only scientist in history to have 15 animal species and a nightclub named after him.") Cannery Row was inspired by Steinbeck's own experiences in California and especially his friendship with Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist who is the basis for the main character, Doc, and the man to whom the book is dedicated.
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