Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Front Cover
HarperCollins, 2000 - Family & Relationships - 449 pages

The modern epic that transformed a generation and continues to inspire millions -- a penetrating examination of how we live and how to live better.

A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning, the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Resonant with the confusions of existence, this classic is a touching and transcendent book of life.

This new edition is updated with important typographical changes, a penetrating new introduction, and a Reader's Guide that includes an interview with Pirsig and letters and documents detailing how this extraordinary book came to be.

About the author (2000)

Robert Maynard Pirsig was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 6, 1928. While serving in the Army, he visited Japan on a leave and became interested in Zen Buddhism. After his service, he received bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from the University of Minnesota. He later studied philosophy at the University of Chicago and at Banaras Hindu University in India. He taught writing at Montana State University in Bozeman and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was also a freelance writer and editor for corporate publications and technical magazines. His first novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, was published in 1974. His follow-up novel, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals, was published in 1991. He died on April 24, 2017 at the age of 88.