It almost went unnoticed, what with Harry Potter and Hillary Clinton grabbing all the book-based headlines over the past month, but John Steinbeck’s classic version of the Cain and Abel story, East of Eden recently sold 750,000 copies inside of a week. Why the rush on a 50-year-old novel? Oprah made it a selection of her newly-revived book club. “Organized book groups, which make reading a social experience, are springing up like weeds, especially in bookstores and libraries – providing a critical marketing opportunity for a publishing industry desperate to reverse sluggish sales numbers.”