For Banned Books Week 2025, my family went to the John Steinbeck House Gift Shop and purchased several books including Grapes of Wrath, which has been banned at different times of history as well as Of Mice and Men.
The store has Penguin versions of the books as well as collector first editions of our local Nobel Prize winner.
You can combine a book shopping outing with lunch upstairs in Steinbeck’s home. The restaurant menu features seasonal
Free parking is available on the street on a first come-first served basis. I have listed their website below:
Back in the 2000s, I reviewed the Steinbeck House Restaurant for the Monterey County Weekly (Curculation: 200,000).
https://ruthpaget.blogspot.com/2018/02/lunching-at-steinbecks-childhood-home.html?m=1
The National Steinbeck Center houses a museum devoted to the works of John Steinbeck. There is a large parking garage next to the Steinbeck Center. For information, their website follows:
Agata Popcada at the Monterey County Weekly wrote a nice online article about Henry Miller, a Big Sur resident, whose books have also been banned:
https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/mp/465/#cv/priority/%5Esmartlabel_personal/199d0945fb6cbee9
Information about the Henry Miller Library and its events follows:
https://www.henrymiller.org/ https://www.henrymiller.org/
Carmel Valley author Jane Smiley has had her book A Thousand Acres banned in several school districts despite being a Pulitzer Prize winner. Book information about A Thousand Acres follows:
A Thousand Acres Book Information
Information about Banned Book Week follows:
https://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
