from: Penguin Classics
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780142437537
ISBN number: 0142437530
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 688
Printing Date: July 29, 2003
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Release Date: July 29, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 14401
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
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.
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.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
this book is like
WOW
KA-POW
a sock in the gut
a kick in the butt-
on fly jeans that were
often worn by torn men
and broken women
who called themselves
beat
this bible is a meet-
ing ground of sound tribal mind
open heart prose
souls that want to rise with
those that have al-
ready rose
each chapter contains
some laughter
about how things came together
during that magical time
of free
verse
and holy ryhme
ginsberg
kerouac
burroughs
ferlinghetti
and more
dissolving their flesh
exposing their spirit driven core
oh, i love to read and bleed this book dry
i love to cry with sad saints
and be healed by words revealed
in the city we are
"constantly risking absurdity and death"
but we
who
are brave
and
not
a slave to tyrants
can freely take a chance
and take a new breath
and dance
with Holy Men
gone
bye.
Peace & Blessings,
john, 'the Light Coach'
Rated by buyers 
-
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.
Rated by buyers -
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.
Rated by buyers -
This reader is a good overall introduction to beat literature. While I could have done with a few more examples of writing from the women in the movement, that probably would not have kept the book as "portable" as its title promises.
Rated by buyers -
An absolute wonder, a perfect selection of Beat writings: Poems, fragments of novels, essays, history, mythology, philosophy... The Portable Beat Reader is one of the most essential books in my collection and rarely leaves my side. And it is, thankfully, portable, and much easier than bringing everything with you all the time. Aquire it, open it, and just start reading.
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