Jack Kerouac
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Language
English
Description
Jack Kerouac’s classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature
“In [On the Road] Kerouac’s heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity.”—Chicago Tribune
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands...
“In [On the Road] Kerouac’s heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity.”—Chicago Tribune
First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands...
2) Big Sur
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Coming down from his carefree youth and unwanted fame, Jack Kerouac undertakes a mature confrontation of some of his most troubling emotional issues: a burgeoning problem with alcoholism, addiction, fear, and insecurity. He dutifully records his ever-changing states of consciousness, which culminate in a powerful religious experience. Big Sur was written some time after Jack Kerouac's best-known works, following a visit to northern California and...
Author
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English
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Description
Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951, in an apartment on West Twentieth Street in Manhattan, that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him. Typed out as one long, single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper that he later taped together to form a 120 foot scroll, this document is among the most significant, celebrated,...
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English
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Description
“[Wake Up] contributes significantly to the fascinating picture of Kerouac’s spirituality, revealing the depth of Kerouac’s identification with the Buddha.”—The Beat Review
“The long, streaming style makes the book majestic and something that you absorb in one sitting, like a symphony.”—Robert A. F. Thurman, from the Introduction
In the mid-1950s,...
“The long, streaming style makes the book majestic and something that you absorb in one sitting, like a symphony.”—Robert A. F. Thurman, from the Introduction
In the mid-1950s,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"In late 1944, under rather mysterious circumstances, aspiring writer Jack Kerouac lost a novella-length manuscript titled The Haunted Life. Set in Galloway, a fictionalized version of Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, the coming-of-age story of Peter Martin-a character based on the author's recently departed friend Sebastian Sampas-tackles the pressing issues of the day. At home in the working-class town the summer before his sophomore...
Author
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English
Description
One of the renowned Beat writer's most formally inventive books, Mexico City Blues is Jack Kerouac's essential work of lyric verse, now reissued following his centenary celebration
Written between 1954 and 1957, and published originally by Grove Press in 1959, Mexico City Blues is Kerouac's most important verse work. It incorporates all the elements of his theory of spontaneous composition and his interest in Buddhism.
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English
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From the most famous of the Beat writers and the author of On the Road and The Dharma Bums, Kerouac's intoxicating love story of two young bohemians, now reissued in the centenary year of his birth
Written over the course of three days and three nights, The Subterraneans was generated out of the same kind of ecstatic flash of inspiration that produced another one of Kerouac's early classics, On the Road.
...8) Doctor Sax
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English
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Description
From the most famous of the Beat writers, the semi-autobiographical novel of growing up between dreams and nightmares in early twentieth century Massachusetts, now reissued following Kerouac's centenary celebration
A haunting novel of deeply felt adolescence, Dr. Sax is the story of Jack Duluoz, a French-Canadian boy growing up in Kerouac's own birthplace, the dingy factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts. There, Dr. Sax, with
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English
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From the acclaimed Beat writer, Jack Kerouac's unique collection of personal travel writing, now reissued following his centenary celebration
In his first directly autobiographical book, Jack Kerouac relates the exhilarating stories of the years he spent restlessly traveling and writing his acclaimed novels. He journeys from the California deserts crisscrossed by train tracks to the bullfights of Mexico to the Beat nightlife of New
...Author
Pub. Date
2012
Language
English
Formats
Description
This novel follows the fortunes of Wesley Martin, a man who Kerouac said 'loved the sea with a strange, lonely love; the sea is his brother and sentences. He goes down.' Kerouac began this work not long after his first tour as a Merchant Marine on the S.S. Dorchester in the late summer of 1942 during which he kept a journal detailing the gritty daily routine of life at sea. Inspired by the trip, which exemplified Kerouac's love for adventure and the...
11) Satori in Paris
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Series
Language
English
Description
From the renowned Beat writer, Kerouac's colorful and meandering search
for his family history, now reissued following his centenary celebrationSatori in Paris is the semi-autobiographical tale of Jack Kerouac's trip to France in search of his heritage. Beginning in Paris and moving west to Brittany, Kerouac traces the paths of his ancestors and explores his own understanding of the Buddhism that came to define his beliefs. From his familiar milieu...
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English
Description
A quintessential American family is pulled apart by war and the rapidly changing tides of society in Jack Kerouac's captivating first novel Published seven years before his iconic On the Road, Jack Kerouac's debut novel follows the experiences of one family as they navigate the seismic cultural shifts following World War II. Inspired by Kerouac's own New England youth, the eight Martin children enjoy an idyllic upbringing in a small Massachusetts...
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English
Description
Tristessa by Jack Kerouac is a haunting and poetic novella that delves into themes of love, suffering, and spiritual longing. Set in Mexico City, the story centers on Tristessa, a morphine-addicted woman whom Kerouac's narrator (a version of himself) loves with a melancholic intensity. Through his relationship with Tristessa, the narrator reflects on life, addiction, and the spiritual search for meaning amid despair.
Written in Kerouac's signature...
14) Scattered Poems
Author
Language
English
Description
Just as he upended the conventions of the novel with On the Road, Jack Kerouac revolutionized American poetry in this ingenious collection Bringing together selections from literary journals and his private notebooks, Jack Kerouac's Scattered Poems exemplifies the Beat Generation icon's innovative approach to language. Kerouac's poems, populated by hitchhikers, Chinese grocers, Buddhist saints, and cultural figures from Rimbaud to Harpo Marx, evoke...
Author
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English
Description
Jack Kerouac's Maggie Cassidy is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel that offers a tender and nostalgic look at first love and adolescence. Set in the 1930s in a small Massachusetts town, the novel follows Jack Duluoz (Kerouac's alter ego) as he experiences the highs and lows of his teenage years, including his passionate yet fragile romance with Maggie Cassidy, a local girl.
With its lyrical prose, vivid descriptions, and emotional depth,...
16) Book of Dreams
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Language
English
Description
Book of Dreams is an experimental novel published by Jack Kerouac in 1960, culled from the dream journal he kept from 1952 to 1960. In it Kerouac tries to continue plot-lines with characters from his books as he sees them in his dreams. This book is stylistically wild, spontaneous, and flowing, like much of Kerouac's writing, and helps to give insight into the Beat Generation author's mind.
Author
Language
English
Description
From the iconic New York Times–bestselling author of On the Road: Three revolutionary collections of poetry in one volume. Rebelling against the dry rules and literary pretentiousness he perceived in early twentieth-century poetry, Jack Kerouac pioneered a poetic style informed by oral tradition and driven by concrete language with neither embellishment nor abstraction. In these three groundbreaking collections, the legendary Beat writer offers...
18) Pic
Author
Language
English
Description
From one of the most famous of the Beat writers, Kerouac's final novel of brotherhood and travel, now reissued in a standalone edition following his centenary celebration
Pic-full name Pictorial Review Jackson-is a ten-year-old Black boy living in rural North Carolina with his grandfather in the 1940s. When Pic is forced to move in with his aunt after his grandfather's passing, his older brother Slim appears to rescue him. Together, they hitch a...
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English
Description
Satori in Paris and Pic, two of Jack Kerouac's last novels, showcase the remarkable range and versatility of his mature talent. Satori in Paris is a rollicking autobiographical account of Kerouac's search for his heritage in France, and lands the author in his familiar milieu of seedy bars and all-night conversations. Pic is Kerouac's final novel and one of his most unusual. Narrated by ten-year-old Pictorial Review Jackson in a North Carolina vernacular,...
20) Maggie Cassidy
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Series
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English
Description
In Jack Kerouac's teenage years his friends gave him a nickname that was prescient and stuck with him throughout his life-Memory Babe. Kerouac was able to conjure up scenes from his childhood and adolescence that astounded his friends with their precision and detail. This talent was to serve him well as a novelist, enabling him to recall long segments of conversation that he could instantly pound out on his typewriter. Maggie Cassidy is one of Kerouac's...