Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha

Rooted in Jack Kerouac's fascination with Buddhism, Wake Up is his retelling of Prince Siddhartha Gotama's life story of leaving behind wealth and security in search of enlightenment. In the introduction, Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman attempts to explain the various references Kerouac makes based on the principles and teachings that interested him. Layered beneath the spiritual nature of this concise piece, Wake Up is written with the same frankness of many of Kerouac's other works.