On the Road  swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Walt Whitman than F. Scott Fitzgerald's, and the narrative goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.

I'm not sure this BBC Big Read book is going to appeal to me, as I remember how much I was looking forward to seeing Easy Rider and how disappointed I was when I finally saw it. Anything heralded as a counter culture expose of our parent's generation is almost bound to seem tame and dated (or at the very least deeply uncool). I'm going to give it a go though, and hopefully be proved wrong.