Book Recommendations

On the Road

By Jack Kerouac

Fiction, Literary, Classics, Coming of Age | 352 pages
1 recommendation
The classic novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation

One 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 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.
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Kev McCready
13th Nov 2024
"In late 1940’s America, Sal Paradise is taken on trips across America by his dude of a friend Dean Moriarty. You can either see this as: a revery of a trip written ten years later, a parody of the American literary scene of that time, a semi-autobiographical novel (mind you, all Kerouac’s novels are) or one about the transcience of friendship. Either way, this is the novel as poetry, about the freedom of the road and the Panglossian nature of youth. It’s a novel as open, sweet and endless as the American Highway."