Cover of The Beat Book

The Beat Book

The Beat movement exploded into American culture in the early 1950s with the force of prophecy. Not just another literary school, it was an artistic and social revolution. William S. Burroughs proclaimed that the Beat writers were "real architects of change. There is no doubt that we're living in a freer America as a result of the Beat literary movement, which is an important part of the larger picture of cultural and political change in this country during the last forty years, when a four-letter word couldn't appear on the printed page and minority rights were ridiculous."

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Anne Waldman, a renowned poet and longtime friend of many of these writers, has gathered in this volume a range of the best and most exemplary writings of the Beat poets and novelists. Selections from the Beat classics appear, as well as more recent prose and poetry demonstrating the continued vitality of the Beat experiment. Included are short biographies of the contributors, an extensive bibliography of Beat literature, and a unique guide to "Beat places" around the world—from Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, where his novel Dr. Sax takes place, to Tangier, where Burroughs wrote parts of Naked Lunch.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 376 pages

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These suit anyone who liked The Beat Book. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Selected Poems, 1947–1995 Shares poetry, beat generation, beat
  2. Planet News Shares poetry, beat generation, beat
  3. Women of the Beat Generation: The Writers, Artists and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution Shares poetry, beat, beat generation
  4. Book of Blues Shares poetry, beat generation, beats

“People who read The Beat Book tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
  2. Memoirs of a Beatnik
  3. I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg
  4. The Best American Short Stories 1996

“If you want more of the same (biography), start with these.”

  1. Alcools
  2. Selected Poems
  3. Collected Poems, 1909-1962
  4. Selected Poems

“If it was the poetry that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Ring of Bone: Collected Poems, 1950-1971
  2. The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971
  3. Gasoline & The Vestal Lady on Brattle
  4. White Shroud

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Concise Anthology of American Literature
  2. Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin
  3. Early Poems
  4. Essential Poems and Writings of Robert Desnos