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Beat generation

The Beat Generation sprang up in New York in the late 1940s. During the 1950s, the Beat generation authors could be found in the bohemian artist communities of Los Angeles’ Venice West, San Francisco’s North Beach, and New York City’s Greenwich Village. This is a list of some of the most influential works of this genre.

On The Road

Jack Kerouac

Described as everything from a "last gasp" of romantic fiction to a founding text of the Beat Generation movement, this story amounts to a nonfiction novel (as critics were later to describe some works). Unpublished writer buddies wander from coast to coast in search of whatever they find, eager for experience. Kerouac's spokesman is Sal Paradise (himself) and real-life friend Neal Casady appears as Dean Moriarty.

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago
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Naked Lunch (1960s A)

William S. Burroughs

No review for Naked Lunch (1960s A)

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago
gareth added this book to Books I Want to Read, over 2 years ago

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A Coney Island of the mind

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

No review for A Coney Island of the mind

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago

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Howl Kaddish And Other Poems

Allen Ginsberg

No review for Howl Kaddish And Other Poems

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago

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Minor characters

Joyce Johnson

Joyce Johnson grew up bright and sensitive in Manhattan in the '50s of the cold war and gray flannel suits. "Attracted to decadence," with "little respect for respectability," she had a boundless - and dangerous - belief in the power of love. For two years, more or less, on and off, she was the girlfriend of Jack Kerouac, during the time that *On the Road* established him as the guiding light and the spokesman of the Beat Generation. Those years were "an exciting period of my life, a time of enormous hope and energy and the feeling that anything was possible... that four people sitting around a table could change the world." This book is the story of her coming of age.

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago

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Big Sur

Jack Kerouac

*Big Sur* is a novel written by *Jack Kerouac*, that was published in 1962. The books perspective is told from Kerouac's alter ego *Jack Dulouz*. The novel describes Kerouac's frustration that he has with his fame of being a writer, and how he goes to his friends cabin on Big Sur to get away from the madness of every day existence. The novel also describes Kerouac's mental state of being, and his struggles with alcohol. *Big Sur* is a book for any man, women, and possibly animal who has an unhealthy obsession with the beat generation.

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago
ogingero added this book to Books I don't want to Read, almost 4 years ago
Linda added this book to Books I don't want to Read, over 4 years ago
gareth added this book to Books I Want to Read, almost 5 years ago

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Gasoline

Gregory Corso

No review for Gasoline

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gareth added this book to Beat generation, over 2 years ago

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