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On the Road

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( 441,363 ratings, 22,473 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
On the Road by Jack Kerouac follows the adventures of Sal Paradise, a young writer, as he travels across America with his friend Dean Moriarty. Set against the backdrop of the post-World War II era, the novel explores themes of freedom, the search for meaning, and the vibrant energy of the Beat Generation. It's a journey filled with friendship, excitement, and the quest for self-discovery.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book may appeal to you if you enjoy tales of adventure and self-discovery. It's perfect for fans of road trips and spontaneous journeys, capturing the spirit of the Beat Generation with a blend of passion, freedom, and a quest for life's deeper meanings.

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Sal Paradise, young and innocent, joins the slightly crazed Dean Moriarty 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.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The exhilarating novel that defined the Beat Generation.

What's your road, man? - holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.

Sal Paradise, young and innocent, joins the slightly crazed Dean Moriarty 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.

A brilliant blend of fiction and autobiography, Jack Kerouac's exhilarating novel defined the new 'Beat' generation and became the bible of the counter culture.

Series: Penguin Essentials

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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Jack Kerouac's On the Road is often praised for its vibrant and influential writing style, capturing the spirit of the Beat Generation. Critics highlight how it inspires a desire for new experiences and underscores themes of alienation and discontent, resonating deeply with readers and shaping cultural movements.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241951538

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 07 April 2011

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 111.0mm

Height: 180.0mm

Weight: 158g

Pages: 288

About the Author

Jack 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.

Also by Jack Kerouac

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  • On the Road
    "The most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat.'" - The New York Times On 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...
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  • On the Road
    Jack Kerouac's Great American Novel, now in a delightful new Clothbound Classics edition. On 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...
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  • Mexico City Blues
    Kerouac's famed freewheeling poem joins the Penguin Modern Classics. '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,...
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  • Big Sur
    Big Sur is Jack Kerouac's stunningly vivid and gritty second novel, newly added to the Penguin Modern Classics series. In 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'. Seeking refuge, he withdrew to a cabin...
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  • Visions of Gerard
    A devastating semi-autobiographical novel and the first volume of Kerouac's memoir cycle. Gerard Duluoz was born in 1917, 'a sickly little kid with a rheumatic heart'. Based on Jack Kerouac's memories of the beloved older brother who died when he was a boy, Visions of Gerard is unique among his novels for its dreamlike evocation of the sensations of childhood...
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  • The Dharma Bums
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  • The Subterraneans
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  • Lonesome Traveler
    Another addition to Penguin Modern Classics' key Kerouac holdings, alongside On the Road, The Town and the City & The Subterraneans. As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records life on the road in prose of pure poetry. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first...
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