Dharma bums (Penguin Books)

Following the explosive energy of "On the Road" comes "The Dharma Bums", in which Kerouac charts the spiritual quest of a group of friends in search of Dharma, or Truth. Ray Smith and his friend Japhy, along with Morley the yodeller, head off into the High Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude and experience the Zen way of life. But in wildly Bohemian San Francisco, with its poetry jam sessions, marathon drinking bouts and experiments in "yabyum", they find the ascetic route distinctly hard to follow.