This year marks the centenary of the birth of Jack Kerouac. As Penguin publishes a lavish new edition of
On The Road to mark the occasion, I'm joined by two Kerouac scholars. Holly George-Warren is working on the definitive biography of Kerouac (her previous work includes Lives of Gene Autry and Janis Joplin), and
Simon Warner co-edited
Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack and runs
Rock and the Beat Generation. They tell me how
On The Road came to be written, how it stands up now, and what made 'the Beats' beat.