Curation #140 from my Kerouac bookshelf: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Item #140 in my Kerouac bookshelf curation project is this paperback 1962 Signet 59th printing of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. 272 pages, it measures about 4" x 7" and is in very good condition. The provenance is that I acquired this in the first half of 2017 from either Amazon or Twice Sold Tales in Farmington, Maine.

If you are unclear of the Kerouac-Kesey connection, click here to read what I've said about it previously. Given the popularity of the excellent film adaptation, I doubt I need to summarize what this book is about. Hence, I don't have a lot to say about this book other than that it spurred me on to read Kesey's less well-known novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (which also got a Hollywood treatment).

Does a Kesey novel belong on your Kerouac bookshelf? Only if you buy into the Six Degrees of Jack Kerouac theory, which I obviously do; see this post and many subsequent posts on The Daily Beat -- you can find them all by Googling the following:

six degrees of jack kerouac site: https://thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com/

That's how you force Google to search a single website for a particular word or phrase. Pretty cool.





Below is a picture of Shelf #5 (last one!) of my Kerouac bookshelf showing the placement of this book (upright just to the left of the pile - it got moved since the picture) on the day I started curating my collection. Next up: The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 by Louise Bogan.

Shelf #5 of my Kerouac bookshelf