Six teenagers from diverse backgrounds – among them the school’s star basketball player – conspire to break into a SAT testing center to steal the answers in hope of acing their exam. They ultimately realize that the answer to their problems and the key to their happiness may not lie in achieving a perfect score.
William Souder, David Colacci (Narrator), “Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck”
The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California’s limitless bounty and appalled by the country’s refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice – paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy.
In 1864 Cavalry Captain John Hayes reluctantly follows orders to become the civilian boss of the Overland Stage Line, which keeps the flow of Western gold to the Union and will help it win the Civil War. Headquarters for the stage line is a small Colorado town with Southern sympathizers who will do anything they can to sabotage his mission. Resistance to his efforts is led by former friend ad colleague Clay Putnam, who has taken advantage of Hayes’ absence and married his former sweetheart.
