Book Playlist

East of Eden Playlist

by John Steinbeck

20 tracks

melancholic

Oct 12, 2026

8 mixes for this book

A restrained, melancholy arc moves from the wide-open Salinas Valley to the intimate conflicts of the Trask family, drawing on American classical music, chamber works, and quiet film-score textures. The instrumental selections suggest inherited burdens and loss without overwhelming concentration; the final songs bring the novel’s struggle with sin, family, and choice into sharper focus, especially the possibility held in timshel: “thou mayest.”

Open in Spotify Reading Room

Your reading session

Press play. Turn the page.

Listen with Spotify

This player plays the saved playlist. Save your mix to listen to the replacements together.

Want a timer? Open the Reading Room for candlelit reading sprints with this soundtrack, a little ambience and a library card that tracks your pages, reading pace and daily streak. How reading sprints work.

Your changes aren't saved yet. Choose Save my mix to create your own Spotify playlist.

Track List

20 songs

Appalachian Spring: Simple Gifts

Aaron Copland · Explore America

Replaced in your draft

String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 "American": II. Lento

Antonín Dvořák · Antonín Dvořák: String Quartet, Op. 96, String Quintet, Op. 97 & Humoresques, Op. 101

Replaced in your draft

String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 - "American" B. 179: IV. Finale (Vivace ma non troppo)

Antonín Dvořák · El Sistema 40 - A Celebration

Replaced in your draft

Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81, B. 155: II. Dumka. Andante con moto

Antonín Dvořák · The Very Best of Dvorak

Replaced in your draft

Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad: I. Loveliest of Trees

George Butterworth · Requiem: The Pity of War

Replaced in your draft

The Banks of Green Willow

George Butterworth · Butterworth: The Banks of Green Willow; A Shropshire Lad/ /McGunn: The Land of the Mountain and the Flood/Coleridge-Taylor: Symphonic Variations on an African Air &c.

Replaced in your draft