Shall I fly from this impious city?
Explore a curated list of books about impious cities and moral dilemmas. Find your next read on themes of sin, redemption, and escaping corruption in urban tales.
Book
The Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac’s classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature “In [On the Road] Kerouac’s heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity.”—Chicago Tribune 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.
