**Jack Kerouac's classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature *First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums * stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two eb...

**Jack Kerouac's classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature *First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums * stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans--mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer--whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.