Drifting through its cast of vivid, earthy characters in a series of impressionistic vignettes, ” The Wayward Bus”, published in ” Penguin Modern Classics”, is John Steinbeck`s Californian Canterbury Tales. ” The Wayward Bus” travels through the backroads of the lush California countryside, transporting the lost & the lonely to new destinations. Juan Chicoy is at the wheel, a man of the l&, hot-blooded & uninhibited. His passengers include Ernest, a travelling salesman out for fun, seventeen-year-old Kit, also known as Pimples, & Camille the stripper who dances at stag nights & takes the star-struck young Norma under her wing. This powerful & unsentimental novel becomes a story of crisis & passion, love & longing, as the travellers reveal their secrets & journey away from their pasts & towards, possibly, the promise of the future. ” The Wayward Bus”, with its profound insight into human desires & failings, remains one of Steinbeck`s most powerful novels. John Steinbeck (1902-68), winner of the Pulitzer Prize & the Nobel Prize for literature, is remembered as one of the greatest & best-loved American writers of the twentieth century. During the Second World War Steinbeck served as a war correspondent, with his collected dispatches published as ” Once There Was a War” (1958); in 1945 he was awarded the Norwegian Cross of Freedom for his novel ” The Moon is Down” (1942), a portrayal of Resistance efforts in northern Europe. His best-known works include the epics ” The Grapes of Wrath” (1939) & ” East of Eden” (1952), & his tragic novella ” Of Mice & Men” (1937). John Steinbeck`s complete works are published in ” Penguin Modern Classics”. If you enjoyed ” The Wayward Bus”, you might like Jack Kerouac`s ” On the Road”, also available in ” Penguin Modern Classics”. ` Sustained brilliance, complete credibility & vividness”. (” Saturday Review”). ” One of Steinbeck`s best books”. (” Newsweek”).