Jack Kerouac

Anyone else like good ole' Jack Kerouac? First I read On The Road which I thought was good but was nothing compared to The Dharma Bums... then I read Big Sur which was very good but also very sickening.
What do you guys think? What was your favorite book? Please don't say On The Road... or say it I guess if thats your only answer... pfft...
There are so many JK books and I want to read another one but I dont just want to pick up a random one... please help.

 

Well I just got into Kerouac so On the Road is the book I am reading now. I do want to read the Dharma Bums next. What was that book like?

 

Visions of Cody is what I think to be his best novel. The attention to detail he is known for and the amount of descriptions of the seemingly mundane is exemplified here and it's what I believe to be his most wild and talented writing.
You've never felt such emotions about breadcrumbs sitting on a worn wood cutting board in a lonely diner before.

 

I really want to check this guy out.
I might pick up whatever you guys' agree is the best or On the Road if it comes close enough when I go to the library next.

Funny, one of the books I have out right now mentions him on the back cover.

"As far as I can tell, The Broken Bubble fell across the invisible membrane that separates our universe from one that is similar but not identical to ours. In the other universe, Jack Kerouac is still alive. And in that universe there was never a TV series called WKRP in Cincinnati but there was a similar program called KOIF in San Francisco. That latter show was based on a novel by Jack Kerouac, called The Broken Bubble. And Jack Kerouac was not Jack Kerouac at all, but a brilliant novelist named Philip K. Dick, who started his career as a science fiction writer but switched to mainstream in the early 1960s and went on to become world famous and appallingly wealthy.
If all of this seems the figment of a surrealist's dream- well, that is entirely appropriate, isn't it? Remember whom we're talking about!
Any fan of Phil Dick's work will place The Broken Bubble on the highest shelf!"
-Ricahrd A. Lupoff


I'm not a hundred percent sure if he's comparing Dick to Kerouac or Kerouac is actually in the novel (but I think the former), but in either case, that makes me quite sure I'll respect the guy.

 

I didn't like very much The Dharma Bums. IMHO, The Subterraneans is his best novel (actually, is a novella). I really loved that book, it' my favorite.

 

If you've never read any Kerouac, "On the Road" is more or less his essential novel.
I recommend you get this version if you are going to buy it. It's unedited and reads like he originally intended, much better than other versions.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143105469/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0140283293&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=18V9EG1JXYQPXYQ1SMDV"]Amazon.com: On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (9780143105466): Jack Kerouac, Penny Vlagopoulos, George Mouratidis, Joshua Kupetz, Howard Cunnell: Books

 

^ I don't buy anything right now, really, but I'll look for that one at the library

My library seems to love Penguin (or maybe me and Penguin just really agree on books), so, hopefully they'll have that version

 

I liked it, really made me want to have a road trip.

 

The scrolls make a difference.

 

any number of books stand out: the subterraneans, the town and the city, satori in paris, pic, and the list goes on.

 

I've just finished reading On the Road. I liked it a lot!

 

hi! i love jack kerouac, my favourite book is the dharma bums; the style of jack kerouac is so fascinating! i like also maggie cassidy and on the road, i don't like the subterraneans

 

Jack Kerouac was an oracle...I've only read excerpts hera and there, but I'll stop procrastinating and read the lot in one go. One of these days...

 

I liked The Dharma Bums the most. I also enjoyed his haikus which I had both in written form and audio form.

 

subterraneans, i say.

 

Here's a very good book inspired from Kerouac and the various poet he liked... http://alter-editions.org/collections/product.php?id_product=167

 

I didn't like this very much

 

Good writer, good books....mess of a man. Just a big mess.

 

Jack was a big inspiration in my life. I hitched across the country and road freight trains for ten years, worked in a vineyard, and worked on a lookout tower for the forest service.

Anybody read his BOOK OF DREAMS?