Books by Jack Kerouac

Book Synopsis''One of the most true, comic and grizzly journeys in American literature'' Time Desolation Angels is the wild and soulful story of the legendary road trip that Jack Kerouac took before the publication of On the Road, told through the persona of Jack Duluoz and accompanied by his thinly-disguised Beat cohorts Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs. As they hitch, hop freight trains, walk and talk their way across the world, from California to Mexico, London to Paris and on to opium-ridden Tangiers, Kerouac chronicles their poetry, partying, mountain vigils and spiritual contemplation with unsurpassable energy and humanity. ''Nerve-jangling, sentimental, sincere and funny'' Sunday TimesTrade ReviewNerve-jangling, sentimental, sincere and funny * Sunday Times *One of the most true, comic and grizzly journeys in American literature * Time *

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922. Educated by Jesuit brothers in Lowell, he decided to become a writer at age seventeen and developed his own writing style, which he called 'spontaneous prose'. He used this technique to record the life of the American 'traveler' and the experiences of the Beat Generation, most memorably in On the Road and also in The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums. His other works include Big Sur, Desolation Angels, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Gerard, Tristessa, and a book of poetry called Mexico City Blues. Jack Kerouac died in 1969.Trade ReviewPop writing at its best. It changed the way I saw the world, making me yearn for fresh experience -- Hanif Kureishi * Independent on Sunday *On the Road sold a trillion Levis and a million espresso machines, and also sent countless kids on the road. The alienation, the restlessness, the dissatisfaction were already there waiting when Kerouac pointed out the road -- William Burroughs

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Book SynopsisIn alternating chapters that reveal a nascent period in their development as two of the twentieth century''s most influential writers, Beat Generation icons William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac''s And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks is an electrifying true-life mystery, including afterword by James Grauerholtz in Penguin Modern Classics.This is a hardboiled crime novel, and a true story. In 1944, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, then still unknown writers, were both arrested following a murder: one of their friends had stabbed another and then come to them for advice - neither had told the police. Later they wrote this fictionalised account of that summer - of a group of friends in wartime New York, moving through each other''s apartments, drinking, necking, talking and taking drugs and haphazardly drifting towards a bloody crime. Unpublished for years, And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks is a remarkable insight into the lives and literary development of two great writers. If you enjoyed And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks, you might like Kerouac''s On the Road, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''The novel that kicked it all off''Independent''An insight into Kerouac before he went on the road and Burroughs before his drug use spiralled out of control, this is a major literary event''GQ

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Book SynopsisA collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive Jack Kerouac’s archive is vast. Throughout his life he was constantly writing, and he meticulously saved and catalogued his material. The result is that beyond the work published in his lifetime there has been a rich stream of posthumous writing that is far from tapped, adding depth to his lifework—the Duluoz Legend—and our understanding of Kerouac the man. Far from being the adrenalized thrill-seeker that he depicted in On the Road’s Dean Moriarty, Kerouac himself was deeply spiritual, shy, and reclusive. He sought adventures for the sake of experience, needing them to fuel his writing, which according to him was his sole reason for living. Few people sacrificed more for their art.This collection of previously unpublished writing culled fro

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Book Synopsis''It is the sum of myself, as far as the written word can go'' Kerouac on THE TOWN AND THE CITY Kerouac''s debut novel is a great coming of age story which can be read as the essential prelude to his later classics. Inspired by grief over his father''s death and gripped by determination to write the Great American Novel, he draws largely on his own New England childhood.

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Book SynopsisFive decades after it was first published, Jack Kerouac''s seminal Beat novel On the Road finally finds its way to the big screen, in a production from award-winning director Walter Salles (Motorcycle Diaries) starring Sam Riley (Control, Brighton Rock), Garret Hedlund (Friday Night Lights), Kristen Stewart (Twilight), Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams and Viggo Mortensen.This edition is transcribed from the original manuscript: hundreds of typed pages taped together by Kerouac to form a ''scroll'', published word for word as it was originally composed.Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), a young innocent, joins his hero Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), a traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat, on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American dream.

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Book Synopsis''Kerouac''s grittiest novel ... sensual and uninhibited'' The New York Times Driven mad by three years of endless telegrams, phonecalls, mail, reporters and snoopers in the wake of his hugely successful novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac, ''King of the Beats'', needs peace, quiet and sobriety: surrounded and outnumbered he has to ''get away to solitude again or die''. Amidst the wild beauty of the Californian landscape, Kerouac struggles to come to terms with his own myth and its malign impact upon his life. The result is a moving account of a man struggling with inner demons: blessed by great talent and cursed with an urge towards self-destruction - a path lined with double bourbons, Manhattans and scotch ...

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Book SynopsisTruth and Beautiful Meaningful Lies is a collection of memorable quotes from one of the most quoted writers in American literature.One of the most celebrated writers in American literature, Jack Kerouac helped an entire generation of post-WWII Americans explore a purpose beyond the standard narrative values, spiritual ideologies, and economic materialism that was rampant throughout pre-war America. Alongside prominent beat writers like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, Kerouac crafted a magnum opus that would later be connected to counterculture movements throughout the 1960s.His extensive collection of novels, short stories, poetry, journals, letters, and other writings are often littered with long-winded reflections, observations, proclamations, and other mad ramblings about life, love, loss, loneliness, and the search for a new American identity. Constantly pivoting from a recluse searching “...once and for all what is the meaning of all this existence and suffering and going to and fro in vain,” to a seasoned road-warrior exploring the country and sifting through the profound philosophies of Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and the meaning of Dharma, Kerouac’s spontaneous style of prose generates a kind of unpolished wisdom that leaves a lasting impression long after reading.The insights and quotes assembled in this book have been woven into a patchwork of reoccurring themes found throughout Kerouac’s writings, such as adventure, life, self-reflection, and spirituality are heavily featured, but more niche quotes around topics like cats, coffee, music, and sports can also be found. This collection pulls from prominent novels such as Big Sur, Desolation Angels, The Dharma Bums, On the Road: The Original Scroll, The Subterraneans, Tristessa, Vanity of Duluoz, and Visions of Cody, as well as some of his selected short stories, poems, letters, and journals.Whether you’re new to Kerouac, searching for inspiration in his words, or are a self-proclaimed “mad one” looking to make sense of it all, this quote book will undoubtedly serve as a go-to reference for the discerning Kerouac reader.

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac’s classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of natureFirst published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans--mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer--whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.Trade Review"In [On the Road] Kerouac's heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity, and builds towards a moving climax."--The Chicago Tribune"In his often brilliant descriptions of nature one is aware of exhilarating power and originality . . . the entire cast of characters is presented with that not unrefreshing blend of naivete and sophistication that seems to be this author's forte."--The New York Times Book Review "Full of sparkling descritions of landscape and weather, light falling through trees, the smell of snow, the motion of animals . . . Jack Kerouac is a writer who cannot be charged with dullness."--The Atlantic

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Book SynopsisThe classic novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generationSeptember 5th, 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of On the RoadInspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naiveté and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up.  

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Book SynopsisA poignant masterpiece of wrenching personal expression from the author of On the Road and The Dharma BumsIn this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion.

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Book SynopsisOn the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Walt Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.

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Book SynopsisA witty, moving philosophical novel, Jack Kerouac''s The Dharma Bums is a journey of self-discovery through the lens of Zen Buddhist thought. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ann Douglas.Following the explosive energy of On the Road, the book that put the Beat Genration on the literary map - and Jack Kerouac on the bestseller list - comes The Dharma Bums, in which Kerouac charts the spiritual quest of a group of friends in search of Dharma, or Truth. Ray Smith and his friend Japhy, along with Morley the yodeller, head off into the high Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude and experience the Zen way of life. But in wildly Bohemian San Francisco, with its poetry jam sessions, marathon drinking bouts and experiments in ''yabyum'', they find the ascetic route distinctly hard to follow.Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. His first published novel, The Town

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Book Synopsis''The tender and achingly poetic account of a love affair'' Lester Bangs, Rolling StoneLeo Percepied, aspiring writer and self-styled freewheeling bum, gravitates to the subterraneans, impoverished intellectuals who haunt the bars of San Francisco. One of them is Mardou Fox, beautiful and a little crazy, whose dark eyes, full of suffering and sweetness, find recognition in Leo. But, afraid of his growing involvement, Leo sets out to destroy their love. Written in three days, The Subterraneans is, like all Kerouac''s work, closely related to his own life while encapsulating his great vision of America.

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Book SynopsisA timeless travelogue from the leading light of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac''s Lonesome Traveller is a jubilant celebration of human discovery, published in Penguin Modern Classics.As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records, in prose of pure poetry, life on the road. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexico while high on opium; catching up with the beat nightlife in New York; burying himself in the snow-capped mountains of north-west America; meditating on a sunlit roof in Tangiers; or falling in love with Montmartre and the huge white basilica of Sacré-Coeur - Kerouac reveals both the endless diversity of human life and his own high-spirited philosophy of self-fulfilment.''Piquant writing, the best part of its flavour being ... the hunt for the big experience, a touch of Hemingway and Whitman''Guardian''Full of startling and beaut

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Book SynopsisNever before published in Kerouac''s lifetime, Jack Kerouac''s Wake Up is a clear and powerful study of the life and works of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, from the author of On the Road. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Robert Thurman.Wake Up recounts the story of Prince Siddhartha''s royal upbringing and his father''s wish to protect him from all human suffering, despite a prediction that he would become a great holy man in later life. Departing from his father''s palace, Siddhartha adopts a homeless life, struggles with his meditations, and eventually finds Enlightenment. Written at the end of Kerouac''s career, when he became increasingly interested in Buddhist teachings, and collected for the first time in one book, this fresh and accessible biography is both an important addition to Kerouac''s work and a valuable introduction to the world of Buddhism itself.Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was an American

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Book SynopsisFrom the bard of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac''s Maggie Cassidy is an autobiographical novel of young love, published in Penguin Modern Classics.Though publishers stopped Maggie Cassidy''s Jack Duluoz and On the Road''s Sal Paradise from sharing the same name, Kerouac meant the books to be two parts of the same life. While On the Road made Paradise (and Kerouac) a hero for generations to come of the disaffected and restless, Maggie Cassidy is an affectionate portrait of the teenager that made the man - of friendship and first love growing up in a New England mill town. Duluoz is a high school athletics and football star who meets Maggie Cassidy and begins a devoted, inconstant, tender adolescent love affair. It is one of the most sustained, poetic pieces of Kerouac''s ''spontaneous prose''.Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. His first published novel, The Town and th

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Book Synopsis''His first novel is a revelation ... the writing is vivid, serious and extraordinary ... wonderful'' The Times The Sea is My Brother is Jack Kerouac''s very first novel, begun shortly after his tour as a merchant sailor in 1942. Lost during his lifetime, it is an intense portrait of friendship and brotherhood and a meditation on the desire to escape society, following the fortunes of two men as they impulsively decide to work their passage on the S.S. Westminster: drinking, arguing, playing cards, dodging torpedoes and contemplating the vast, terrible beauty of the sea. Published with fragments of early stories and letters, this visceral work gives a unique insight into the young Kerouac and the formation of his genius. ''What''s clear from this newly published first novel is that Kerouac was positively fizzing with talent at an early age'' Sunday Times

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Book SynopsisThe tale of Kerouac''s alter-ego, Vanity of Duluoz presents Jack Duluoz''s high school experiences as a sporting jock in Massachusetts and his time at Columbia University on a football scholarship. Just as Jack''s glamorous new adult life begins, so does World War II, and he joins the US Navy to travel the world. As Jack experiences more, he realizes the limits of his former plans and returns to New York at the start of the Beat movement, to a riot of drugs, sex and writing. Vanity of Duluoz was Kerouac''s final work published before his death in 1969.Trade ReviewA loud-mouthed novel... A frontal assault on life, a total abandonment to feeling * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac (1922 - 1969) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. Most of his life was spent in the vast landscapes of America or living with his mother, with whom he spent most of his life. Kerouac's best known works are On the Road and The Dharma Bums.Trade ReviewA remarkable ear for the cadences of a phrase or sentence, a sense of how to register in words the sheer, sweet flow of things * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac called Doctor Sax, the enigmatic figure who haunted his boyhood imagination, ''my ghost, personal angel, private shadow, secret lover''. In this extraordinary autobiographical account of growing up in Lowell, Massachussetts, told through his fictional alter ego Jack Duluoz, he mingles real people and events with fantastical figures to capture the accents, scents, sights and texture of his childhood: playing among the river weeds and railroad tracks, going to church, witnessing life and death on the street corners. Written when he was staying with William Burroughs in Mexico in 1952, Doctor Sax was Kerouac''s favourite of all his books: a dark, vivid and magical evocation of a boy''s vibrant inner life.Trade ReviewKerouac's best book * Time *Spooky and tender with stretches of sheer phosphorescent fantasy, Doctor Sax has a vigour and a thirst for life ... one of the gems of modern literature * Rolling Stone *

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Book SynopsisIn 1960 Jack Kerouac was near breaking point. Driven mad by constant press attention in the wake of the publication of On the Road, he needed to ''get away to solitude again or die'', so he withdrew to a cabin in Big Sur on the Californian coast. The resulting novel, in which his autobiographical hero Jack Duluoz wrestles with doubt, alcohol dependency and his urge towards self-destruction, is one of Kerouac''s most personal and searingly honest works. Ending with the poem ''Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur'', it shows a man coming down from his hedonistic youth and trying to come to terms with fame, the world and himself.Trade ReviewKerouac's grittiest novel... sensual and uninhibited * The New York Times *Stunning and vivid * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThe Haunted Life is the coming-of-age story of Peter Martin, a college track star determined to idle away what he knows will be one of his last innocent summers in his tranquil New England home town. But with the war escalating in Europe and his two closest friends both plotting their escapes, he realizes how sheltered his upbringing has been. As he surveys the competing influences of his youth, he struggles to determine what might lead to an intellectually authentic life. The Haunted Life is ultimately a meditation on intellectual truth, male friendship and the desire for movement - all themes that would dominate Kerouac''s later work.

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Book SynopsisIn 1952 and 1953 as he wandered around America, Jack Kerouac jotted down spontaneous prose poems, or sketches as he called them, on small notebooks that he kept in his shirt pockets. The poems recount his travels—New York, North Carolina, Lowell (Massachusetts, Kerouac’s birthplace), San Francisco, Denver, Kansas, Mexico—observations, and meditations on art and life. The poems are often strung together so that over the course of several of them, a little story—or travelogue—appears, complete in itself. Published for the first time, Book of Sketches offers a luminous, intimate, and transcendental glimpse of one of the most original voices of the twentieth century at a key time in his literary and spiritual development.

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Book SynopsisThe classic novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generationOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, a sideburned hero of the snowy West. As Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “Beat” and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than fifty years ago. This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction by Ann Charters.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the Trade Review"An authentic work of art . . . the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is." --Gilbert Millstein, The New York Times "On the Road has the kind of drive that blasts through to a large public. . . . What makes the novel really important, what gives it that drive is a genuine new, engaging and exciting prose style. . . . What keeps the book going is the power and beauty of the writing." --Kenneth Rexroth, San Francisco Chronicle "One of the finest novels of recent years. . . a highly euphoric and intensely readable story about a group of wandering young hedonists who cross the country in endless search of kicks." --Leonard Feather, Downbeat

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Book SynopsisA deluxe edition of Kerouac's 1958 classicPublished just one year after On The Road, this is the story of two men enganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the High Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Trade Review"In [On the Road] Kerouac's heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity, and builds towards a moving climax."--The Chicago Tribune"In his often brilliant descriptions of nature one is aware of exhilarating power and originality . . . the entire cast of characters is presented with that not unrefreshing blend of naivete and sophistication that seems to be this author's forte."--The New York Times Book Review "Full of sparkling descritions of landscape and weather, light falling through trees, the smell of snow, the motion of animals . . . Jack Kerouac is a writer who cannot be charged with dullness."--The Atlantic

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Book SynopsisA poignant masterpiece of wrenching personal expression from the author of On the Road and The Dharma BumsIn this 1962 novel, Kerouac's alter ego Jack Duluoz, overwhelmed by success and excess, gravitates back and forth between wild binges in San Francisco and an isolated cabin on the California coast where he attempts to renew his spirit and clear his head of madness and alcohol. Only nature seems to restore him to a sense of balance. In the words of Allen Ginsberg, Big Sur reveals consciousness in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion.

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Book SynopsisPart of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books 50 Covers competition For the seventieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, the Penguin Orange Collection celebrates the heritage of Penguin’s iconic book design with twelve influential American literary classics representing the breadth and diversity of the Penguin Classics library. These collectible editions are dressed in the iconic orange and white tri-band cover design, first created in 1935, while french flaps, high-quality paper, and striking cover illustrations provide the cutting-edge design treatment that is the signature of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions today.On the Road Jack Kerouac’s masterpiece of the Beat era was first published in 1957 and continues to provide a vital portrait of a generation adrift, as well as inspiration for travelers, dreamers, and artists in every generation that has followed.Trade Review"An authentic work of art . . . the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is." --Gilbert Millstein, The New York Times "On the Road has the kind of drive that blasts through to a large public. . . . What makes the novel really important, what gives it that drive is a genuine new, engaging and exciting prose style. . . . What keeps the book going is the power and beauty of the writing." --Kenneth Rexroth, San Francisco Chronicle "One of the finest novels of recent years. . . a highly euphoric and intensely readable story about a group of wandering young hedonists who cross the country in endless search of kicks." --Leonard Feather, Downbeat

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Book Synopsis''See my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart...''Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York''s underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac''s classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of natureA witty, moving philosophical novel, Jack Kerouac''s The Dharma Bums is a journey of self-discovery through the lens of Zen Buddhist thought. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ann Douglas.Following the explosive energy of On the Road, the book that put the Beat Genration on the literary map - and Jack Kerouac on the bestseller list - comes The Dharma Bums, in which Kerouac charts the spiritual quest of a group of friends in search of Dharma, or Truth. Ray Smith and his friend Japhy, along with Morley the yodeller, head off into the high Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude and experience the Zen way of life. But in wildly Bohemian San Francisco, with its poetry jam sessions, marathon drinking bouts and experiments in ''yabyum'', they find the ascetic route distinctly hard to follow.

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Book SynopsisA timeless travelogue from the leading light of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac''s Lonesome Traveller is a jubilant celebration of human discoveryAs he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records, in prose of pure poetry, life on the road. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexico while high on opium; catching up with the beat nightlife in New York; burying himself in the snow-capped mountains of north-west America; meditating on a sunlit roof in Tangiers; or falling in love with Montmartre and the huge white basilica of Sacré-Coeur - Kerouac reveals both the endless diversity of human life and his own high-spirited philosophy of self-fulfilment.''Full of startling and beautiful things ... one sees, hears and feels'' Sunday Times

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Book Synopsis''I want to be considered a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday''Freewheeling and spontaneous, Mexico City Blues is Jack Kerouac''s most significant and emblematic poem. Consisting of 242 loosely linked ''choruses'', it takes in life, death, spirituality, jazz improvisation, memory, fantasies and dreams, all infused with the rhythm of the blues, to create a surreal and all-encompassing epic. ''A spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature'' Allen Ginsberg''A jazz poet. His sentences frequently move into tempestuous sweeps and whorls and sometimes they have something of the rich music of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Dylan Thomas'' The New York Herald TribuneTrade ReviewA spontaneous bop prosody and original classic literature. -- Allen GinsbergA jazz poet. His sentences frequently move into tempestuous sweeps and whorls and sometimes they have something of the rich music of Gerard Manley Hopkins of Dylan Thomas. -- The New York Herald Tribune

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Book SynopsisKerouac''s last published novel, Pic is an endearing portrait of a road trip across America, seen through the eyes of one innocent, adventurous boy.''Pic'', or Pictorial Review Jackson, is a ten-year-old boy from North Carolina. When his grandfather dies and he is sent to live with another relative, his older brother, Slim, comes to rescue him. Together they hitch to New York City and, eventually, all the way to California, encountering hardship, kindness, music, love and danger as they go.

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Book Synopsis''She understands Karma, she says: What I do, I reap''Her name means sadness, yet Tristessa, a prostitute and morphine addict, lives without cares in her shabby room with a menagerie of pets and an altar to the Virgin Mary. Based on Jack Kerouac''s own real-life love affair in Mexico city, this is the story of a man''s ill-fated relationship with a woman he portrays with tenderness and dignity, even as her life spirals out of control. ''A narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a chihuaha dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady, first in their crowded bedroom, then out to drunken streets, taco stands, and pads at dawn in Mexico City slums'' Allen Ginsberg

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922. Educated by Jesuit brothers in Lowell, he decided to become a writer at the age of seventeen and developed his own writing style, which he called 'spontaneous prose'. He used this technique to record the life of the American 'traveler' and the experiences of the Beat Generation, most memorably in On the Road and also in The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums. His other works include Big Sur, Desolation Angels, Lonesome Traveler, Tristessa and a book of poetry called Mexico City Blues. Jack Kerouac died in 1969.Trade ReviewMy best most serious sad and true book yet. -- Jack Kerouac

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac''s Great American Novel, now in a delightful new Clothbound Classics editionOn the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Walt Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.Trade ReviewThe most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by thegeneration Kerouac himself named years ago as "beat" * The New York Times *Pop writing at its best. It changed the way I saw the world, making me yearn for fresh experience -- Hanif Kureishi * Independent on Sunday *On the Road sold a trillion Levis and a million espresso machines, and also sent countless kids on the road -- William Burroughs

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Book Synopsis90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksTristessa is a strange fever-dream of morphine sickness and belly-deep sadness. Or, in the words of Allen Ginsberg: a narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a chihuahua dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady, first in their crowded bedroom, then out to drunken streets, taco stands, and pads at dawn in Mexico City slums'.

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Book Synopsis Spontaneous poetry by the author of On the Road, gathered from underground and ephemeral publications; including “San Francisco Blues,” the variant texts of “Pull My Daisy” and American haiku. HERE DOWN ON DARK EARTH before we all go to Heaven VISIONS OF AMERICA All that hitchhikin All that railroadin All that comin back to America —Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was a principal actor in the Beat Generation, and a companion of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in that great adventure. His books include On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Cody, Pomes All Sizes (City Lights) and Scripture of the Golden Eternity (City Lights).

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Book SynopsisThe classic autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac featuring "one of the most true, comic, and grizzly journeys in American literature" (Time)—now in a new edition Originally published in 1965, this autobiographical novel covers a key year in Jack Kerouac's life—the period that led up to the publication of On the Road in September of 1957. After spending two months in the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington, Kerouac's fictional self Jack Duluoz comes down from the isolated mountains to the wild excitement of the bars, jazz clubs, and parties of San Francisco, before traveling on to Mexico City, New York, Tangiers, Paris, and London. Duluoz attempts to extricate himself from the world but fails, for one must "live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry." Desolation Angels is quintessential Kerouac.Trade Review"If the Pulitzer Prize were given for the book that is most representative of American life, I would nominate Desolation Angels." —Dan Wakefield, The Atlantic"One of the most true, comic, and grizzly journeys in American literature." —Time"Kerouac was a breath of fresh air when he came on the literary scene. He was also a force, a tragedy, a triumph, and an ongoing influence, and that influence is still with us." —Norman Mailer"Kerouac ... defines the sensibilites of members of his own subgeneration: we knew them as wearing such guises as the Beat Generation, the Subterraneans, the Dharma Bums; now we see them as Desolation Angels, sadly pursuing their empty futilities..." —Nelson Algren"Each book by Kerouac is unique, a telepathic discord. Such rich natural writing is nonpareil in later 20th century, a synthesis of Proust, Celine, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, Genet, Thelonius Monk, Basho, Charlie Parker and Kerouac's own athletic sacred insight. Jack Kerouac was a 'writer' as his great peer William S. Burroughs says." —Allen Ginsberg

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Book SynopsisRecently discovered by the estate of Jack Kerouac, 'Orpheus Emerged' chronicles the passions, conflicts, and dreams of a group of bohemians searching for truth while studying at a university. Written shortly after the iconic Beat author met Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and others in and around Columbia University, the story showcases the emerging core of the Beat Generation. This book offers a unique portrait of an artist as a young man and shows a writer in the process of finding the voice that would eventually express the spirit of his contemporaries.

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Book SynopsisThe raucous, exuberant, often wildly funny account of a journey through America and Mexico, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road instantly defined a generation on its publication in 1957: it was, in the words of a New York Times reviewer, “the clearest and most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as ‘beat.’” Written in the mode of ecstatic improvisation that Allen Ginsberg described as “spontaneous bop prosody,” Kerouac’s novel remains electrifying in its thirst for experience and its defiant rebuke of American conformity.In his portrayal of the fervent relationship between the writer Sal Paradise and his outrageous, exasperating, and inimitable friend Dean Moriarty, Kerouac created one of the great friendships in American literature; and his rendering of the cities and highways and wildernesses that his characters restlessly explore is a hallucinatory travelogue o

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Book SynopsisA brand new volume of previously unpublished writings from the archives reflecting Jack Kerouac’s Buddhist thinkingFrom a young age Kerouac was a spiritual thinker and questioner, and he always considered himself a spiritual writer. Buddhism gave more meaning to Jack’s work as a writer: he was working not for personal accomplishment and glory but for human betterment. And Buddhism justified his lifestyle: with its vision of the material world as empty and illusory, he was free to do what he wanted.This collection shows Jack at his earnest, soulful best. The writing is consistently and wonderfully Kerouacian: it is honest, reflective, heartfelt, and revealing, with great characterizations amid his self-exploration as he wrestles with his consciousness, desperate for belief.

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