John Steinbeck

The film opens during the Great Depression with two migrant workers arriving by bus at a ranch near Soledad, California. George Milton and Lennie Small are trying to attain their shared dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream, which he never tires of hearing George describe, is merely to have soft rabbits on the farm, which he can pet. They are fleeing from their previous employment in Weed where they were run out of town after Lennie was accused of attempted rape when he touched a young woman's dress (prompted by his love of stroking soft things). At the ranch, the dream appears to move closer to reality. Candy, the aged, one-handed ranch-hand, offers to pitch in with Lennie and George so they can buy the farm. The dream disappears when Lennie accidentally kills the young and attractive wife of Curley, the ranch owner's son, while trying to stroke her hair. A lynch mob led by Curley gathers. George, realizing he is doomed to a life of loneliness and despair like the rest of the migrant workers, and wanting to spare Lennie a painful death at the hands of the vengeful and violent Curley, George shoots Lennie in the back of the head before the mob can find him. The film closes with George reminiscing in a train boxcar.

In the Salinas Valley, in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of their father Adam. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, to how to get ahead in business and in life, to how to relate to estranged mother.

The film tells the story of how the lead characters, George and Lennie, try to pursue their dream of owning their own ranch instead of working always for other people.

This is a promo for the 2013 series, 'The Michael J. Fox Show' on NBC. "The Michael J Fox Show - Official Promo #1 NBC" You ordered dishwasher? Dishwasher. There's a good reason Michael Henry needed to go back to work. You know what I'll do? I'll call my wife on her cell phone and she will straighten this whole thing out. 911, what's your emergency? No, 911? I didn't call 911. You know what I did? I called 917, but I mis-dialed, I-I-I, my drugs haven't kicked in. Excuse me? It's fine, I'm fine. Hello? Staying at home was just too dangerous. Hands up! NYPD! Relax! I'm fine, I said I was fine on the phone. Doesn't matter, we have to respond. Since we're both here, could I get you to sign an autograph? My uncle's got Alzheimer's. I've actually got Parkinson's. Either way. For 20 years, he's poured everything he had into work. Now he pours it all into us. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. Yay! Come on people, who's turn is it to set the table? You wearing that? What are we driving a Zamboni to school? In 'The Grapes of Wrath' Ma and Pa Joad escaped the Dust Bowl. My dad's condition is the Dust Bowl of my family. I'm failing you. What? The whole thing was manipulative. You can be my hero, daddy. I-I beg to differ. He's from Pennsylvania. He's not as funny as he thinks he is. He wears hats like they just fell off a shelf in a store, and whatever way it landed on his head he just keeps it like that. You just gonna let it sit like... What? It's a hat! Enough with the kale, we get it, you're white. Can you put those things away, you're sharing the kids. 'Sup Aunt Leigh. Oh my God. You catch more flies with honey. You're gonna give the flies diabetes. Yo! Five o'clock news, we love you, bro! Thanks, man. And thanks for that. There's no one who doesn't love you. Harris! He's not the only one who misses you, Mike. You should come back to work. You know why I left. Remember the rolling chair thing? You spend your time worrying about the worst case scenario, and it actually happens, you've lived it twice. And with that I'll leave you the same way I have every night for the last eleven years, Stay informed, New York. Nightly News is next. Come on, just think about it. I got an announcement I want to make. I don't want you to get angry or confused or scared, but uh, I'm thinking about going back to work. Thank you! Geez, I was thinking about it, I don't know where I stand. We're just kinda happy that you're getting out of the house. Kind of? Welcome back, Mr. Henry. I'm Kay, your new segment producer. If you don't like it I can drop her like a stone. No, I like that she's shorter than me. It's a nice touch. Look at you. You're back already. Aaaahhh! What are you doing? Rocky. How old are you? Carsick, huh? I'm fine. But for me, this is perfectly still. We both know NBC's gonna milk it by showing me in slow motion with lame uplifting music in the background. America's favorite newsman is back. Oh, for the love of... Mike Henry returns to NBC 4. He's ready, are you? When they show you in slow motion you're either dead or you're under indictment. Or you just got kicked off American Idol. And we're back with a very special guest this morning, Mike Henry's here. It's always good to be with old friends. It feels like you never left. You look like you're in the pinnacle of health. I wouldn't say pinnacle. Can you not have a personal victory right now, we are starving. (Lyrics) alright Already we'll all float on Now don't you worry we'll all float on (Lyrics) I can be your hero baby I can kiss away the pain, oh yeah I will stand by you forever You can take my breath away (Lyrics) Oh oh oh, oh oh oh This is a bright side This Fall Michael J. Fox returns to NBC The Michael J. Fox Show Thursdays this fall

"Books" This commercial shows an Apple iPad (full-sized) next to an iPad Mini while a light and fun piano song plays. On each screen the iPads have the iBooks app open. The iPad opens up Ernest Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises", and the iPad Mini counters with "The Valley of the Moon" by Jack London. Next the iPad pulls up "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck, and the Mini's retort is the western, "How the West Was Won" by Louis L'Amour. The iPad tries again with Moby Dick from Herman Melville and the iPad Mini opens up "Gone Fishing" by James H. Schmitz. Someone then picks up the iPad mini and starts reading "Gone Fishing", turning the pages by swiping their finger across the screen. They tap the screen to bookmark their page, and close the book returning it to their iBook Library. The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway Scribner Classics - vs - The Valley of the Moon by Jack London John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002) John Steinbeck East of Eden Penguin Books - vs - How the West Was Won Louis L'Amour Based on the screenplay written by James R. Webb Bantam Books Herman Melville Moby Dick Vigo Popular Classics - vs - Gone Fishing by James H. Schmitz Illustrated by Krenkel Gone Fishing: some distance away, in the desert or among the remotely towering mountain ranges. One thing he had learned from the binder was that McAllen had told the truth in saying no one could contact him from Earth before the full period of his exile was over. The reason had seemed appalling enough in itself. This world had moved to a point in its orbit where the radiance of its distant sun was thickening between it and Earth, growing too intense to be penetrated by the forces of the McAllen Tube. Another four years would pass before the planet and the valley emerged gradually from behind that barrier again. He walked, rested, walked again. Now and then he was troubled by a burst of violent sweating, followed by shivering fits until his clothes began to try again. The big moon edged presently over the ridge above him, and in the first flood of its light the opposite slope of the valley took on the apprance of a fanciful sub-oceanic reef. The activity of the animal life about Barney increased promptly. It was no darker now than an evening hour on Earth, and his fellow occupants of the Ecological Base seemed well-adjusted to the strange shifts of day and night to which they had ben consigned. He pushed through a final thicket of shrubbery, and found himself at the dge of the lake. Beyond the almost circular body of water, a towering wall of cliffs sealed the upper end of the valley. He had come almost a mile, and while a mile - a city mile, at least - wouldn't have meant much to Barney Chard at one time, he felt quit exhausted now. He sat down at the edge of the water, and, after a minute or two, bent forward and drank from it. It had the same cold, clear flavor as the water in the cabin. The surface of the water was unquiet. Soft-flying large insects of some kind were swarming about, stippling the nearby stretch of the lake with their touch, and there were frequent swifts swirls as fish rose from beneath to take down the flyers. Presently one of them broke clear into the air - a big fish, thick-bodied and shining, looking as long as Barney's arm in the moonlight - and dropped back with a splash. Barney grinned twistedly. The NOTES indicated Dr. McAllen had taken some part in stocking the valley, and one could trust McAllen to see to it that the presence of his beloved game fish wasn't overlooked even in so outlandish a project. He shifted position, became aware of the revolver in his pocket and brought it out. A save of dull anger surged slowly through him again. What they did with trees and animals was their own business. But what they had done to a human being.... He scrambled suddenly to his feet, drew his arm back, and sent the gun flying far out over the lake. It spun through the moonlight, dipped, struck the surface with less of a splash than the f

The Griffins reenact three classic literature novels taught in high school: The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Of Mice and Men.

Helen and Noah see a counselor, Alison returns to her house and gets a cold reception.

Rick returns to the prison and tells Maggie and Hershel that Carol killed Karen, and thus he sent her off. Meanwhile, in the quarantined cell block, Hershel continues to care for the sick, with Sasha and Glenn assisting him, as the conditions of the infected worsen, with many succumbing to the flu and reanimating as walkers. Despite their dire situation, he maintains optimism and comforts the other people in the quarantined area. The reanimated quickly increase and overrun the cell block, and Hershel, Glenn, Sasha and Lizzie fend for their lives. Hearing the gunshots inside the prison, Maggie rushes to the quarantined zone, while the exterior fence gives way to walkers, who are killed by Rick and Carl using automatic rifles. Maggie manages to enter the cell block by shooting the window, eliminates the remaining undead and rushes to her father's aid, while Hershel is tending to a dying Glenn. As Carl reassures his father, Daryl's group returns, and Bob administers medicine to the remaining infected survivors, including Glenn and Sasha. Hershel returns to his cell block and breaks down in tears. When Daryl approaches him about Carol, he only tells him that he should speak to Rick. The remaining survivors dispose of the walker corpses. As Rick and Carl continue to tend to their crops, the prison is revealed to be observed by the Governor.

After retiring from working as a newscaster to focus on his health and to spend more time with his family, Mike Henry returns to work. Mike's daughter Eve makes a video project comparing the book The Grapes of Wrath, to her father returning to work.

Jess is in her thirties and she begins to worry about wanting to have children before its too late. Schmidt is bothered by being unable to satisfy Emma during sexual intercourse. Nick finally decides to sit down to begin writing his zombie novel.

The kids have a meeting with Frankie and Mike about their parenting techniques, and they are thrown for a loop, when their parents attempt to change.

When Oscar joins a trivia contest, Andy tries to get the entire office involved. Meanwhile, Dwight goes to Sabre headquarters to explore other job opportunities.

Archer's favorite hooker Trinette claims that he fathered her child, Seamus.

Ted is confronted by a beautiful girl named Zoey who's upset about the landmark to be torn down to make way for the new GNB headquarters he's designing.

On the island, the Man in Black attempts to recruit Sawyer in his attempt to leave the island, while an impromptu funeral is held for the real Locke. In the flash sideways, Locke is fired from his job and becomes a substitute teacher.

Eric gets an office on a shoddy stretch of Hollywood Blvd., and in trying to announce himself as Vince's manager, finds himself hitting road blocks. Vince, Drama and Turtle scope out an antique desk with a rich Hollywood history, but learn it's already been sold to Gary Busey an actor with whom they have their own colorful past. Ari preps for his annual meeting with R&B super-diva Mary J. Blige, but twin-sibling rivalry in the office screws everything up..

Increasingly frustrated by what she sees as dishonesty by Keith, Logan, and Professor Landry, Veronica withdraws from all of them. While staying at Wallace and Piz's dorm room, she meets a girl trying to locate her missing boyfriend. Professor Landry offers Veronica an internship with the FBI, Keith breaks up with Harmony after being blackmailed by Vinnie Van Lowe, and Mercer is cleared of being the rapist by providing an alibi. After being drugged at the food court, Veronica almost becomes the rapist's latest victim, but he is frightened off at the last minute.

Colleen dies and her husband Pickett takes out his anger by beating Sawyer. Sawyer is deceived into thinking that a pacemaker has been implanted in him and that his heart will explode if his heart rate exceeds 140 bpm. Ben reveals to Sawyer that trying to escape is futile because they are on a separate island off the coast of the island where the survivors' camp is. In flashbacks, Sawyer cons his way out of prison and finds out that he has a daughter. After claiming that he doesn't care about her, he anonymously gives a large sum of money to his daughter.

The gang tries to help Marshall get over Lily, especially when he finds a credit card bill that leads to a hotel in New York City.

A new student named Allison Taylor arrives at Springfield Elementary School and proves to be more than a match for Lisa in both educational and musical feats. After Allison wins first chair saxophone in the school orchestra ahead of her, Lisa vows to defeat Allison at something: by winning the school diorama contest. Meanwhile, Homer steals 100 pounds of sugar from an overturned truck and decides to sell it to the town. However, despite his best efforts to guard his sugar mound, a rainstorm dissolves it. At the contest, Bart switches Allison's diorama of The Tell-Tale Heart with a cow's heart to help Lisa win. Lisa's guilt at the plan forces her to give Allison's real model back. The pair set aside their differences and become friends. Principal Skinner decides that neither Allison nor Lisa's entry deserves to win, awarding victory to Ralph Wiggum.

In the episode, Bart is sent to France on a student exchange trip, where his hosts treat him as a slave. Meanwhile, an Albanian student takes Bart's place in the Simpsons family, and shows great interest in Homer's work at the nuclear power plant.

"For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns stopped what they were doing so they could help. They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed." When thirty-eight jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, due to the closing of United States airspace, the citizens of this small community were called upon to come to the aid of more than six thousand displaced travelers. Roxanne and Clarke Loper were excited to be on their way home from a lengthy and exhausting trip to Kazakhstan, where they had adopted a daughter, when their plane suddenly changed course and they found themselves in Newfoundland. Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke, who had been on vacation in Ireland, were forced to receive updates by telephone on the search for their son Kevin, who was among the firefighters missing at the World Trade Center. George Vitale, a New York state trooper and head of the governor's security detail in New York City who was returning from a trip to Dublin, struggled to locate his sister Patty, who worked in the Twin Towers. A family of Russian immigrants, on their way to the Seattle area to begin a new life, dealt with the uncertainty of conditions in their future home. The people of Gander were asked to aid and care for these distraught travelers, as well as for thousands more, and their response was truly extraordinary. Oz Fudge, the town constable, searched all over Gander for a flight-crew member so that he could give her a hug as a favor to her sister, a fellow law enforcement officer who managed to reach him by phone. Eithne Smith, an elementary-school teacher, helped the passengers staying at her school put together letters to family members all over the world, which she then faxed. Bonnie Harris, Vi Tucker, and Linda Humby, members of a local animal protection agency, crawled into the jets' cargo holds to feed and care for all of the animals on the flights. Hundreds of people put their names on a list to take passengers into their homes and give them a chance to get cleaned up and relax.

Naked, published in 1997, is a collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The book details Sedaris' life, from his unusual upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, to his booze-and-drug-ridden college years, to his Kerouacian wandering as a young adult. The book became a best-seller and was acclaimed for its wit, dark humor and irreverent tackling of tragic events, including the death of Sedaris' mother.

You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe. It was published posthumously in 1940 from the October Fair manuscript. The novel tells the story of George Webber, a beginning author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill. When the residents of Libya Hill read the book and see the egregious distortions Webber penned, they begin sending Webber death threats and menacing letters expressing their discontent with the novel, even though it is held in high regard in the rest of the country. Wolfe, as in many of his other novels, explores the themes of a changing America, including the stock market crash and the illusion of prosperity, and the unfair passing of time, which inhibits George from ever being able to go "home again". The book is one of his more popular novels, along with Look Homeward Angel. The title comes from the finale of the novel when protagonist George Webber realizes, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time - back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." "You can't go home again" has entered American speech to mean that after you have left your country town or provincial backwater city for a sophisticated metropolis, you can't return to the narrow confines of your previous way of life, and, more generally, attempts to relive youthful memories will always fail. Susan Matt has suggested that the phrase is sometimes spoken to mean that you can't return to your place of origin without being deemed a failure. In this regard, the phrase is used as a self-admonition or warning. You can't go home again ambitious Americans tell themselves. They say it as a warning to stick it out, to not dare go home and subject themselves to the prospect of being a failure in the eyes of their family and the friends of their youth.

East of Eden brings to life the intricate details of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories.

"Of Mice and Men" tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers in Great Depression-era California.

Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. In a nearly hopeless situation, they set out for California's Central Valley along with thousands of other "Okies" in search of land, jobs, and dignity.

The story concerns mainly Ethan Allen Hawley, a former member of Long Island's aristocratic class. Ethan's late father lost the family fortune, and thus Ethan works as a grocery store clerk. His wife Mary and their children resent their mediocre social and economic status, and do not value the honesty and integrity that Ethan struggles to maintain amidst a corrupt society. These external factors and his own psychological turmoil lead Ethan to try to overcome his inherent integrity in order to reclaim his former status and wealth.

Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue written by American author John Steinbeck. It recounts tales of a 1960 road trip with his French standard poodle, Charley, around the United States. He wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country on a personal level, since he made his living writing about it. He wrote of having many questions going into his journey, the main one being, "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that the "new America" did not live up to his expectations.