What do you think?
Rate this book
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the American Culture
Featuring "Rolling Stone" pieces by William Burroughs and Lester Bangs, reminiscences by Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Bono, and photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Gerard Malanga, this treasury of Beat lore and literature is a true collector's item. 40 photos.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
5 people are currently reading
215 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 14, 2008
I'd read Kerouac's
On The Road
years ago while waiting for a bus in downtown Spokane. I'd read Burrough's Soft Machine when I was thirteen and it went WAY over my head, not to mention scaring the crap out of me. I read his Exterminator after college and loved it. And I saw Ginsberg in all these hippy pictures from the 60's and thought he was a hippy. I knew of the Beats but that's about that.
Having little previous knowledge of the Beats, their work and their influence on all that came after them, I'd say The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats is about the best place one could start. The articles in this book have something to say about pretty much everyone involved in the Beat scene, so the origins are quiet well explored. Even more fascinating is the way the various writers examine the effect and influence these mad, mad, cats had on more or less every "movement" that has happened since. Folks like Johnny Depp and Lee Ranaldo weigh in with their views and experiences, giving the book a sort of full circle feel.
The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats covers all the tragedy and triumph and everything in between of the Beats. The articles are well written and often reveal an intimacy with the subject matter that is necessary to being able to write well about something. This is a fantastic Beat primer.
Having little previous knowledge of the Beats, their work and their influence on all that came after them, I'd say The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats is about the best place one could start. The articles in this book have something to say about pretty much everyone involved in the Beat scene, so the origins are quiet well explored. Even more fascinating is the way the various writers examine the effect and influence these mad, mad, cats had on more or less every "movement" that has happened since. Folks like Johnny Depp and Lee Ranaldo weigh in with their views and experiences, giving the book a sort of full circle feel.
The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats covers all the tragedy and triumph and everything in between of the Beats. The articles are well written and often reveal an intimacy with the subject matter that is necessary to being able to write well about something. This is a fantastic Beat primer.
October 9, 2014
Very informative and enjoyable. The pictures alone are worth the price of admission! I have read dozens of books about the Beats and many biographies of the individual writers and artists but this book draws from many sources I have not yet read. And the few I have, like 'Jack Kerouac: A Chicken Essay' are small off the wall rarities you don't usually see quoted.
It also has a good mix of writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and even an essay on the kids of the Beats and what their lives were like.
I liked the article about Beat humorists, and the one about the portrayal of Beats in the mass media.
This is a book I'd like to own as a reference book to go to again and again and to lend to friends. Alas, I got it out of the library!
It also has a good mix of writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and even an essay on the kids of the Beats and what their lives were like.
I liked the article about Beat humorists, and the one about the portrayal of Beats in the mass media.
This is a book I'd like to own as a reference book to go to again and again and to lend to friends. Alas, I got it out of the library!
April 19, 2013
I love this book for what it is. It's an easy going coffee table type book with a variety of articles, histories and perspectives on the beats accompanied by a nice selection of famous photos and some rare photos I hadn't seen. Of course, I'm biased when it comes to the beats and many of the people who contributed to this collection.
This book is also a nice overview for someone just starting to explore the beats. If you're already deep into the beats you probably already know all this and might be disappointed.
The timing was right for me to revisit the beats and this book helped me figure out what works I haven't read yet from this period and where to turn next.
This book is also a nice overview for someone just starting to explore the beats. If you're already deep into the beats you probably already know all this and might be disappointed.
The timing was right for me to revisit the beats and this book helped me figure out what works I haven't read yet from this period and where to turn next.
Want to read
November 2, 2012Great reader for someone who has a little background in the Beats (ie prereq; you must have read "on the road", or "naked lunch", or "howl"....)
It is a great read for someone with an internet era attention span as it is composed of mostly magazine length articles and lots of awesome pictures.
Tons of contributers talking about the origin of the 'beat generation' and movement and its cultural/political impacts.
It is a great read for someone with an internet era attention span as it is composed of mostly magazine length articles and lots of awesome pictures.
Tons of contributers talking about the origin of the 'beat generation' and movement and its cultural/political impacts.
April 30, 2025
Perfect intro to the Beats. Indispensable source for an essay I wrote and the knowledge I now have (:
May 2, 2009
Authoritative tome on the Beat culture, exhaustive and detailed. May tell you much more about the Beats than you believed possible.
October 30, 2009
good for the pictures....
November 18, 2009
a great pictoral history of the beats. but it doesn't easily fit on a standard bookshelf. good for the coffee table.
December 2, 2010
I LOVE this book! Dozens of fantastic essays!
August 2, 2011
Filled with contradiction and heart-felt portraits. A must read for anyone looking to gain insight into the Beats as a group (or lack there of).
September 27, 2022
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats is composed of the writings of many who were, knew, or were influenced by the Beatniks, as they came to known.
The article by Douglas Brinkley titled The American Journey of Jack Kerouac is my best deep dive into Jack, and I am sympathetic to him. If only he exercised more Buddhist admonitions for compassion and self-control over his drinking, who knows, he might have given us a better model to emulate. Allen Ginsberg took that assignment upon himself and helped create a model for seeking youth to follow.
It’s a welcome and timely read for me, as I’ve belatedly begun reading and trying to map out the influence they had on my hippie-yippie generation. Generation is the wrong word. I’m sick of the wholesale labeling of people born into a certain era as good, bad, or indifferent, especially as GREAT in some way or other. The so-called GREATEST GENERATION, meaning my father’s WWII generation, was also the very same Beat generation. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, et al were all a few years older than my father, who was a gunner on a Fletcher Class Destroyer who splashed a few Japanese planes in some of the big fights. At that same historical moment these still unlabeled Beats began their palling around and writing. Jack even served hazardous duty in the Merchant Marine for a time, from 1942 until he was discharged as a “schizoid personality” in 1943, perhaps because he announced he’d never kill anyone, even in self-defense.
In fact, all these men and a few women, beat or not, were individuals, as different as they were similar. Jack even distanced himself from his fellow Beats in the sixties and rather than advising and mentoring the oncoming Hippie “generation,” again composed of many elder mentors like Tim Leary, et al, he turned into a sour, politically conservative alcoholic mama’s boy, expressing too little of his vaunted Bodhisattva compassion. I’m grieved to note that lack of compassion included his daughter, making him a deadbeat dad as well as an ingrate to so many who’d helped him. We must separate the man from his art and not deify our heroes as any more perfect or moral than mythic Greek Gods.
Mythology can be fun, but it can lead us astray if we take it too seriously. Jack, for one, created a mythic persona to obscure much of how he wrote, even who he really was. His spontaneous prose style of writing was, according to numerous witnesses cited in this book, revised through numerous drafts before a final draft was hammered out on his famous “scroll” fed through his typewriter, so he wouldn’t have to break his flow by inserting another page. How many earnest writers have been misled by this aspiration to be ‘spontaneous’ and got swamped by unedited gibberish?
The article by Douglas Brinkley titled The American Journey of Jack Kerouac is my best deep dive into Jack, and I am sympathetic to him. If only he exercised more Buddhist admonitions for compassion and self-control over his drinking, who knows, he might have given us a better model to emulate. Allen Ginsberg took that assignment upon himself and helped create a model for seeking youth to follow.
It’s a welcome and timely read for me, as I’ve belatedly begun reading and trying to map out the influence they had on my hippie-yippie generation. Generation is the wrong word. I’m sick of the wholesale labeling of people born into a certain era as good, bad, or indifferent, especially as GREAT in some way or other. The so-called GREATEST GENERATION, meaning my father’s WWII generation, was also the very same Beat generation. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, et al were all a few years older than my father, who was a gunner on a Fletcher Class Destroyer who splashed a few Japanese planes in some of the big fights. At that same historical moment these still unlabeled Beats began their palling around and writing. Jack even served hazardous duty in the Merchant Marine for a time, from 1942 until he was discharged as a “schizoid personality” in 1943, perhaps because he announced he’d never kill anyone, even in self-defense.
In fact, all these men and a few women, beat or not, were individuals, as different as they were similar. Jack even distanced himself from his fellow Beats in the sixties and rather than advising and mentoring the oncoming Hippie “generation,” again composed of many elder mentors like Tim Leary, et al, he turned into a sour, politically conservative alcoholic mama’s boy, expressing too little of his vaunted Bodhisattva compassion. I’m grieved to note that lack of compassion included his daughter, making him a deadbeat dad as well as an ingrate to so many who’d helped him. We must separate the man from his art and not deify our heroes as any more perfect or moral than mythic Greek Gods.
Mythology can be fun, but it can lead us astray if we take it too seriously. Jack, for one, created a mythic persona to obscure much of how he wrote, even who he really was. His spontaneous prose style of writing was, according to numerous witnesses cited in this book, revised through numerous drafts before a final draft was hammered out on his famous “scroll” fed through his typewriter, so he wouldn’t have to break his flow by inserting another page. How many earnest writers have been misled by this aspiration to be ‘spontaneous’ and got swamped by unedited gibberish?
October 11, 2022
Interesting in the sense that the Beats had/have a powerful impact on American culture (in particular). I just wish people would stop writing about regular men like they're minor gods or something.
I also think it's interesting to consider that the Beats wrote and created and performed out of this urge to push back against the very vanilla 1950s U.S.A (and, to be fair, they did). But, as portrayed by this book, all the Beats themselves were rather vanilla, too?? Everyone was doing the same thing. Doing the same drugs, sleeping with the same people, living the same lifestyle. It just looked very different from mainstream society. This so-called "Beat Generation" was white-washed and a boys' club. Only very briefly and off-handedly does this anthology mention people of color and/or women.
I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan of Beat work and the authors/creators highlighted here, but, again, I found this interesting as it pertains to historical significance.
I also think it's interesting to consider that the Beats wrote and created and performed out of this urge to push back against the very vanilla 1950s U.S.A (and, to be fair, they did). But, as portrayed by this book, all the Beats themselves were rather vanilla, too?? Everyone was doing the same thing. Doing the same drugs, sleeping with the same people, living the same lifestyle. It just looked very different from mainstream society. This so-called "Beat Generation" was white-washed and a boys' club. Only very briefly and off-handedly does this anthology mention people of color and/or women.
I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan of Beat work and the authors/creators highlighted here, but, again, I found this interesting as it pertains to historical significance.
September 8, 2007
This great collection of Rolling Stone articles is filled with wonderful photos and great info.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews