Wednesday, December 30, 2009

"What's your favorite Kerouac book?" poll results

Here are the results of The Daily Beat’s (very unscientific) latest poll, “What’s your favorite Kerouac book?” The number after the title is the number of votes the book received, and the number in parentheses is the percentage of votes (n=31) the book received.

As you can see, the top three were The Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels, and On The Road, in that order! This is surprising but gratifying to me as that is how I would rate the top three as well.

The Dharma Bums 10 (32%)
Desolation Angels 8 (25%)
On The Road 6 (19%)
Big Sur 2 (6%)
Tristessa 2 (6%)
Vanity of Duluoz* 1 (3%)
Dr. Sax* 1 (3%)
Lonesome Traveler 1 (3%)
Visions of Gerard* 0 (0%)
Visions of Cody 0 (0%)
Maggie Cassidy* 0 (0%)
The Town and the City* 0 (0%)
The Subterraneans* 0 (0%)

I will admit that I voted without having read all the listed books (I starred those I have yet to read, and I do own them all so only time stands between me and my goal: to read everything Kerouac ever wrote). I'm guessing there's a correlation between the number of votes a book received and how relatively well-known it is. Not all of Jack's books get as much press as, say, On The Road does, so not all of Jack's books enjoy the same level of readership. That's too bad, because all of his books are worth reading (in my humble, Kerouac-obsessed opinion).

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