The Olive Reader

According to The Economist, On The Road is one of the most shoplifted books in the English-speaking world, furtively swiped off bookstore shelves from London to Los Angeles by devotees who identify with its narrator’s empathy for ‘‘the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn’‘ — and presumably never pay retail either.