Product Description

Through poetry, fiction, essays, song lyrics, letters, and memoirs, this authoritative single-volume collection of Beat literature captures the triumphant energy of a movement that swept through American letters with hurricane force.

Featuring: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Michael McClure, and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19839 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-29
• Released on: 2003-07-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 688 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780142437537
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
The Portable Beat Reader is an excellent and thorough study of the Beat Generation, compiled and edited by Ann Charters, biographer of Jack Kerouac and one of our most notable experts on Beat literature and ideas. This lively work of scholarship goes deeply into the history of the Beat movement, investigating events such as the discovery (by writer William Burroughs) of the word beat to describe this literary generation. The reader includes essays on all the major prose and poetry writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, and offers rare insight into the literary-historical context of the movement.

From Publishers Weekly
Cutting through bohemian posturing and excess, Charters reprints the most vital material produced by writers of the Beat generation, offering a broad perspective on the movement by including work by lesser-known figures alongside that of leading lights Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Charters, a noted critic of the Beat generation and Jack Kerouac's first biographer, has chosen a representative sample of Beat writings for the latest addition to the Viking "Portables" series. Arranged chronologically in six sections, it includes excerpts from Kerouac's On the Road , Allen Ginsberg's Howl , and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch , as well as work by Herbert Huncke, Ray Bremser, and lesser-known figures. "Beat" is used in its broadest sense to cover the San Francisco Renaissance poets and others, including Bob Dylan, who were influenced by or were sympathetic to the Beats. Robert Creeley's work is conspicuously absent. A general introduction as well as introductions to each section attempt to "situate the writers in their political, social, and literary contexts." This is highly recommended.
- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Good Start for the "Beat"en Path
Nice sampler... all the writers you should expect are in here.

A feature I enjoyed particularly was the intro section... read about the writer before the piece. Since I had not heard of so many of these writers, I found it intriguing to see how many were part of the same group of friends. The Beats largely were connected with each other's lives... and fed off each other's style and work.

Buy this book, then go get the full works of these individual writers. For an anthology of Beat writers, you will find no better book.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

A Great Guide If You Don't Know What You Like
This book features some excellent beat writers and includes informative blurbs on their history and style. Each artist has a little chunk of their writing for you to sample, and the material is everything from stories to letters to classically bad prose.

What impressed me were the essays by each other, on the actual generation hype.

"Young people seemed more intense, clutching, and I couldn't help feeling they took themselves too seriously... 'good, clean fun' appeared to be a thing of the past. Or perhaps the aura of suspicion and defensiveness was merely a reflection of my own fears..." --Carylon Cassady

It's a great book for deciding which authors you want to read more of.

Essential for fans of 20th century literature
Simply put, this is what I turn to when I need inspiration for reading, for creating, for anything. It combines wonderful bios of everyone from Kerouac to Bob Dylan, and their poems, book excerpts, and lyrics galore. Absolutely enjoyable, absolutely essential. Thank god for Ann Charters.