A narrator and his son Chris ride a motorcycle from Minnesota toward the West Coast with friends, alternating road observations and practical talk about motorcycle repair with the narrator's recovered memories of his former self, Phaedrus, a philosophy teacher whose obsessive pursuit of a definition of Quality led him through Kant, Aristotle, and Poincare toward a breakdown and electroshock treatment.
Books mentioned in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (9)
The Greeks by H. D. F. Kitto: “Kitto's The Greeks, a blue and white paperback which he has bought for fifty cents, and he has reached a passage that describes the very soul of the Homeric hero”
Walden by Henry David Thoreau: “A copy of Thoreau's Walden... which Chris has never heard and which can be read a hundred times without exhaustion.”
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant: “The bulk of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is concerned with how this a priori knowledge is acquired and how it is employed.”
Phaedrus by Plato: “In the Professor of Philosophy's absence, another Platonic dialogue had been assigned. Its title was Phaedrus, which meant nothing to our Phaedrus since he didn't call himself by that name.”
Iliad by Homer: “The Iliad is the story of the siege of Troy, which will fall in the dust, and of its defenders who will be killed in battle.”
The Meeting of East and West by F. S. C. Northrop: “The philosophy book, which is called The Meeting of East and West, by F. S. C. Northrop, suggests that greater cognizance be made of the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum from which the theoretic arises.”
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu: “It was the 2,400-year-old Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu.”
Audels Automotive Guide by Audel: “In addition, a general shop manual such as Audel's Automotive Guide fills in the gaps.”
Books that mention Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1)
There but for the by Ali Smith: “'A man reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'”