Description
The '60s in America were extraordinary years of revolution and revelation and it is no coincidence, according to Beidler, that they were also a time of unprecedented literacy and widespread faith in the transformational power of books. This survey of '60s reading and writing first addresses the mythologies of the '60s and the relationship between '60s readers and the texts they were reading, then launches into an alphabetically-arranged guide to the writing of dozens of writers including Richard Alpert, Carlos Castaneda, Germaine Greer, Malcolm X, Henry David Thoreau and Tom Wolfe. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
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At the heart of Scriptures for a Generation are dozens of detailed entries discussing individual writers and the particular importance of their texts - bona fide '60s classics ranging from The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five to Carlos Casteneda's The Teachings of Don Juan and the Boston Women's Health Book Collective's Our Bodies, Ourselves. Represented as well are such works of revered elders as Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf and Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Beidler's coverage also extends to works of the early '70s that are clearly textual and spiritual extensions of the '60s: the Portola Institute's Last Whole Earth Catalog, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and others. An overview of reading and writing as both a product and prime mover of '60s culture precedes the main section. In his conclusion Beidler highlights the most notable efforts to document and interpret the era.
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