On Quality

Robert Pirsig built his reputation on one question: what do we mean when we call something good? This book gathers his writings on that question, the idea of Quality, which runs through all of his thinking. Readers who know him from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the hugely popular book that made his name, will find the theme they remember, here treated directly rather than through a story.

The collection is not a rehash of work already in print. It draws on pieces from Pirsig's unpublished papers that readers have not seen before, set beside his central ideas. For anyone curious about how he approached values, reason and the way we judge the world around us, it offers a closer look at the thinking behind his famous book.