Book Rating (50)
Narrator Rating (11)

On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition

Unabridged Audio Book

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Will Patton

11 Hours 0 Minutes

Penguin Audio

October 2007

Audio Book Summary

A 50th anniversary hardcover edition of Kerouac’s classic novel that defined a generation

Few novels have had as profound an impact on American culture as On the Road. Pulsating with the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “beat” and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets, and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event that “set them free.” Based on Kerouac’s adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose four cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naïveté and wild abandon, and imbued with Kerouac’s love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up. This hardcover edition commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of the novel in 1957 and will be a must-have for any literature lover.

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Reviews

  • Michael F.

    Jack Kerouac’s roman à clef On the Road is now 67 years young. It is a novel based on Kerouac’s life and friends from 1947 until 1950. They were remarkable friends who included the artist and writer William Burroughs, the great poet Alan Ginsberg and Kerouac’s crazy friend Neal Cassidy, albeit with different names in the novel. This is the classic of the beat generation, a movement of the 1950’s that favored jazz, marijuana, overuse of alcohol and free sexuality. Those themes permeate the book as the main character Sal Paradise travels multiple times across the country and ultimately to Mexico. It is a wonderful story with unforgettable characters whose expressed feelings and thoughts are sometimes troubling and sad but often humorous and entertaining. Along the way, Sal Paradise experiences poverty, overuse of alcohol, irresponsibility, the love of jazz (called “bop” as in bebop), smoking marijuana (called “tea”), theft, misuse of money and a love for meeting crazy new people if even for a few hours. It is a true American classic. The audiobook is read by the great actor Will Patton whose slang, laughing and sometimes singing perfectly captures the feelings of the beat generation.

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  • Joanna J

    A very full and robust account of the travels of young adults with wanderlust. A lust for life and multiple cultures met along the way make this a fun but an intense read. This one I will need to listen to again. Possibly several times. This would be a great travel read...Naturally!

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  • Allott B

    Incredible narrator! Changed the book for me. Highly recommended.

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  • VictorGP

    First off … will Patton is a master … wow; just a wow !!! He does the book a wonderful service !!! About the book … we’ll to put it in a sentence … is not so much of what he writes … but about how he writes it . The ability to make ordinary everyday events into epic adventures it’s what stands out to me the most … I’ve know about this book for decades and Im glad I finally listen to it … made me cry and laugh:.. sometimes simultaneously!!! Highly recommend

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