A young man searches for meaning, creates art, and grapples with fame as he traverses the stomping grounds of the Beat Generation—from Mexico City to Manhattan—in Jack Kerouac's semi-autobiographical novel This urgently paced yet deeply introspective novel closely tracks On the Road author Jack Kerouac's own life. Jack Duluoz journeys from the Cascade Mountains to San Francisco, Mexico City, New York, and Tangier. While working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the Cascades, Duluoz contemplates his inner void and the distressing isolation brought on by his youthful sense of adventure. In Tangier he suffers a similar feeling of desperation during an opium overdose, and in Mexico City he meets up with a morphine-addicted philosopher and seeks an antidote to his solitude in a whorehouse. As in Kerouac's other novels, Desolation Angels features a lively cast of pseudonymous versions of his fellow Beat poets, including William S....

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 a spontaneous, uncensored perspective on everything from religion to the structure of language itself. Scattered Poems: Bringing together selections from literary journals and his private notebooks, Scattered Poems exemplifies Kerouac's innovative approach to language. Populated by hitchhikers, Chinese grocers, Buddhist saints, and cultural figures from Rimbaud to Harpo Marx, the poems evoke the primal and the sublime, the everyday and the metaphysical. The...

In the spring of 1943, during a stint in the Merchant Marine, twenty-one-year old Jack Kerouac set out to write his first novel. Working diligently day and night to complete it by hand, he titled it The Sea Is My Brother. Now, nearly seventy years later, its long-awaited publication provides fascinating details and insight into the early life and development of an American literary icon.Written seven years before The Town and The City officially launched his writing career, The Sea Is My Brother marks a pivotal point in which Kerouac began laying the foundations for his pioneering method and signature style. A clear precursor to such landmark works as On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and Visions of Cody, it is an important formative work that bears all the hallmarks of classic Kerouac: the search for spiritual meaning in a materialistic world, spontaneous travel as the true road to freedom, late nights in bars and apartments engaged in intense conversation, the desperate urge to escape from society, and the strange, terrible beauty of loneliness.Review"Kirkus Reviews," 2/1/12"A Jack London-esque yarn.""Publishers Weekly," 1/30/12"While it may not be the Rosetta Stone of the beat movement, the publication of this flawed manuscript will be an event for [Kerouac's] admirers.""Booklist," 3/1/12"Read this first effort to watch Kerouac learning the ropes.""Entertainment Weekly," 3/2/12"You'll see hints of the bebop prose that would later pour out of Kerouac's typewriter so effortlessly." "Cleveland Plain Dealer," 3/11/12"Rarely does talking seem as much like action as it does in "The Sea Is My Brother." The characters' words fire the imagination. If they don't move you, to quote Louis Jordan, 'Jack, you dead'...There is a song inside "The Sea Is My Brother," a song for anyone who has ever looked over the horizon and thought, 'I'm gonna get out of here someday.'" "Tampa"" Bay"" Times," 3/11/12"For a glimpse of Kerouac crossing the boundary from boy to man, fans can now turn to his first novel." "Wall Street Journal," 3/20/12"["The Sea Is My Brother"] offers plenty of disarming insights into who Kerouac was as a person and writer before he slipped behind the mask of Beat Generation Zen-master...The book is enjoyable" Litreactor.com, 3/20/12""The Sea is My Brother" is a fascinating read, both in its own right and as part of Kerouac's canon." "New York"" Post," 3/18/12"There are plenty of hints of the Kerouac to come." Blurt-Online, 3/12/12 "["The Sea is My Brother"] is perhaps the best of the posthumous releases....Could be considered the skeleton that would become gems.""Huffington Post," 3/23/12"Fans of the "On the Road" author will be fascinated by the glimpse into Kerouac's early writing mind.""January Magazine," 3/22/12"For his admirers and students of his style, the book is a worthwhile read." "National Post "(Canada), 3/25/12"A foreshadowing of Kerouac at his best, a kind of sweet, unassuming persona that made his writing very engaging." "Chicago"" Reader," 4/13 "I loved Kerou ReviewKirkus Reviews, 2/1/12“A Jack London–esque yarn.”Publishers Weekly, 1/30/12“While it may not be the Rosetta Stone of the beat movement, the publication of this flawed manuscript will be an event for [Kerouac’s] admirers.”Booklist, 3/1/12“Read this first effort to watch Kerouac learning the ropes.”Entertainment Weekly, 3/2/12“You'll see hints of the bebop prose that would later pour out of Kerouac's typewriter so effortlessly.”Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/11/12“Rarely does talking seem as much like action as it does in The Sea Is My Brother. The characters' words fire the imagination. If they don't move you, to quote Louis Jordan, ‘Jack, you dead’...There is a song inside The Sea Is My Brother, a song for anyone who has ever looked over the horizon and thought, ‘I'm gonna get out of here someday.’”Tampa Bay Times, 3/11/12“For a glimpse of Kerouac crossing the boundary from boy to man, fans can now turn to his first novel.”Wall Street Journal, 3/20/12“[The Sea Is My Brother] offers plenty of disarming insights into who Kerouac was as a person and writer before he slipped behind the mask of Beat Generation Zen-master...The book is enjoyable”Litreactor.com, 3/20/12“The Sea is My Brother is a fascinating read, both in its own right and as part of Kerouac’s canon.”New York Post, 3/18/12“There are plenty of hints of the Kerouac to come.”Blurt-Online, 3/12/12“[The Sea is My Brother] is perhaps the best of the posthumous releases....Could be considered the skeleton that would become gems."Huffington Post, 3/23/12“Fans of the On the Road author will be fascinated by the glimpse into Kerouac’s early writing mind.”January Magazine, 3/22/12“For his admirers and students of his style, the book is a worthwhile read.”National Post (Canada), 3/25/12“A foreshadowing of Kerouac at his best, a kind of sweet, unassuming persona that made his writing very engaging.”Chicago Reader, 4/13“I loved Kerouac’s first novel, The Sea Is My Brother...[It] left me with that feeling that life is full of poems, pain, colorful characters, and small moments that matter.”Milwaukee Shepherd Express, 4/12/12“The Sea is My Brother is chock-full of pathos, anticipation and hurt. Kerouac’s characters, including the small role players, are a perfect blend of real people living real lives. It was a brilliant, youthful performance by the author, years before he changed the pace of literature with On the Road.”Chicago New City, 4/16/12“A captivating preview into the author—and his works—to be...A complete story, romantic, energetic, exuberant and even brash, qualities Kerouac never outgrew.”Charleston Post & Courier, 5/27/12“The fascination, and perhaps the value of this book, is that it presents itself as a clear precursor to the books that followed. Given Kerouac’s subsequent impact, it is an important artifact in the popular literature of the time.”Key West News, 6/10/12“There is none of the jazzy, hepcat language of his mature novels here, more the mannered, measured words of the immature. Yet this first novel already has the uncanny effect that the reader dwells inside what the writer is singing.”

Though raised Catholic, in the early 1950s Jack Kerouac became fascinated with Buddhism, an interest that would have a profound impact on his ideas of spirituality and their expression in his writing from Mexico City Blues to The Dharma Bums. Published for the first time in book form, Wake Up is Kerouac's retelling of the story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong search for Enlightenment. As a compendium of the teachings of the Buddha, Wake Up is a profound meditation on the nature of life, desire, wisdom, and suffering. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a concise primer on the concepts of Buddhism and as an insightful and deeply personal document of Kerouac's evolving beliefs. It is the work of a devoted spiritual follower of the Buddha who also happened to be one of the twentieth century's most influential novelists. Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha will be...