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., CUNYCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Book News, Inc.
Extensive selections from writers such as Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Ferlinghetti, and Snyder, and authors influenced by the Beats, are presented with a general introduction and substantial headnotes by the editor. Material from authors not normally associated with the Beat movement is included as well as work from Beat figures' wives and girlfriends who were writers in their own right. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.


Book 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.


About the Author
Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.

ANNOTATION

The most comprehensive anthology available of the writing that electrified and, at times, outraged America. In poetry, fiction, essays, letters, song lyrics, and memoirs, this forceful collection captures the energy, rudeness, and exhilaration of the works of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Bob Dylan, Diane Di Prima, and other prominent voices of the Beat Movement.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

Author Biography: Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Cutting through bohemian posturing and excess, Charters here reprints much of the most vital, readable and relevant material produced by the Beat generation, primarily in the 1950s and '60s, with some selections from the '70s and '80s. The novels of such leading figures as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs lend themselves well to excerpting, giving this volume creditable ballast. Representative works of Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder are included along with those of lesser-known Beats (e.g., John Clellon Holmes), fellow travelers like Frank O'Hara and Amiri Baraka, and wives and girlfriends often overlooked at the time, including Hettie Jones, Carolyn Cassady and Joyce Johnson. Charters ( Kerouac ) offers a broad perspective on this seminal literary movement: she links East Coast Beats to the San Francisco Renaissance poets; pays attention to such latter-day Beats as Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg; and explains the position of non-Beat but related writers--Alan Watts, Anne Waldman, Diane DiPrima and the young Norman Mailer--in her helpful introductory essay and notes preceeding each entry. Her energizing, liberating anthology makes it clear that such Beat preoccupations as the bomb, the meaninglessness of modern existence and ecological destruction remain current. ( Jan. )

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

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