John Steinbeck gave us Travels With Charley just a few years before he died. It is, in my opinion, the greatest travelogue ever written. A lover of Cervantes and Don Quixote, Steinbeck referred to his 75-day trip across America in 1960 as “Operation Windmill.”

In its presentation speech, the Swedish Academy said its reason for awarding the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature to John Steinbeck was, “for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humour and a keen social perception.” That presentation ended with the reading of this note:

Dear Mr. Steinbeck – You are not a stranger to the Swedish public any more than to that of your own country and of the whole world. With your most distinctive works you have become a teacher of good will and charity, a defender of human values, which can well be said to correspond to the proper idea of the Nobel Prize. In expressing the congratulations of the Swedish Academy, I now ask you to receive this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature from the hands of His Majesty, the King.”

Do you want to be one of Steinbeck’s 100?