As we approach the end of the year, I thought it would be worth looking back at the books that were published this year about the Beat Generation. These titles are not always extensively advertised and so there’s a good chance you may have missed some of them.
The Buddhist Years, by Jack Kerouac, edited by Charles Shuttleworth
This title from Rare Bird Books collects some of Kerouac’s writings on the subject of Buddhism. We ran some excerpts here and a review here. In the latter, Marc Olmsted (whose own book on Buddhism and the Beats comes out next year) wrote that “Charles Shuttleworth has done a remarkable job of excavating gem after gem of Jack Kerouac’s unpublished dharma writings.”
Find it on Amazon here and Bookshop.org here.
The Bunker Diaries, by Stewart Meyer
Stewart Meyer was a close associate of William S. Burroughs and this is his book about their time together. It shows a young Meyer learning to write and is filled with much of Burroughs’ wisdom. It also includes various accounts of Beat antics involving Gregory Corso and Herbert Huncke.
You can buy this on Amazon or Bookshop.org.
Giving Myself Away, by Charles Upton
The full title of this book is Giving Myself Away: From Beat Generation Protégé to Metaphysical Social Critic and it’s written by a poet who was part of the City Lights Pocket Poets Series. It is a lengthy work and it includes many recollections of interactions with Beat and countercultural figures, with Lew Welch featuring prominently. I reviewed it here.
City Lights: Pocket Poets Series, 2005-2025, by Donald Heneghan
On that subject… This book is a follow-up to Heneghan’s earlier survey, City Lights: Pocket Poets Series 1955-2005. It is a descriptive account of the publications in City Lights’ iconic poetry series.
Order it directly from the publisher.
A Remarkable Collection of Angels: A History of the 6 Gallery Reading, by David S. Wills
This is the first book-length study of the 6 Gallery reading and it gives an extensive history of the building, the area of San Francisco in which it took place, and the personal and artistic lives of the people involved.
It’s on Amazon and Bookshop.org.
Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments, edited by Tony Trigilio
I have not yet had the pleasure of reading this book but it sounds like a great project and I’m sure Tony has done an excellent job.
It can be ordered from BlazeVOX.
To Find Dawn’s Moon: Details & Dimensions of The Dharma Bums, by Gregory Stephenson
Gregory Stephenson has written another short book about the Beat Generation, this time digging into what is probably Jack Kerouac’s second most popular book. I reviewed it very positively for Beatdom #25 a few months ago.
It can be ordered via Bookshop.org.
Natalie, by Robert Dumont
This book, which is intriguingly subtitled “Voices & Fragments: A Biographical Collage,” is a short work on Natalie Jackson. I have not had the chance to read it but Jonah Raskin reviewed it here.
You can order it from the publisher here.
Note: If you want an extremely in-depth account of Jackson’s life and death, see this 2024 essay:
Black Surrealist: The Legend of Ted Joans by Steven Belletto
This is regrettably another book I have yet to read. (In my defence, it’s not easy getting books shipped to rural Cambodia and there were many books to cover this year...) I have heard good things about this one and hope to read it next year. Simon Warner reviewed it here.
Here’s the Amazon page for it and here’s the Bookshop.org page.
Italian Journals, by Gregory Corso
From the book description:
Gregory Corso’s Italian Journals are a poetic snapshot of his time in Rome in 1988. It is not a journal of his day-to-day activities but rather of his thoughts and reactions in the form of over forty poems. He also used it as a sketchbook to record sketches of some of the places around Rome he was visiting. The Italian Journals include both the poems and the sketches to provide an intimate account of his life during his stay in Rome.
Here’s the Amazon link.
Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet, edited by Leon Horton
This isn’t exactly a 2025 publication but it was re-released in a second edition a few months ago, with a fetching new cover, so I’ll include it here. This is my review of the first edition.
Evergreen Review: Dispatches from the Literary Underground, Covers & Essays 1957-1973, by Pat Thomas
This wonderful book is a collection of covers and interviews and essays from Evergreen Review. It is a fantastic publication that is essential reading for fans of the 20th-century countercultural movements. I reviewed it here.
It can be ordered directly from the publisher.
Roosevelt After Inauguration Redux, by Oliver Harris
As almost all of you will know, Harris is the Burroughs expert and his redux books are vital texts. This new book is published by Moloko, who put out Harris’ One Shot last year. I reviewed it here but the tl;dr is that I don’t have enough superlatives for it. It’s one of my favourite Beat books. I am eagerly awaiting my review copy of Roosevelt and will cover it here next month.
You can read more about it on the Moloko website. Use the order form and add the book name.
Jack Kerouac’s Legendary World of Duluoz, by Ann Charters
This is a 20,000-word essay by Ann Charters. I have not read it yet but it was published earlier this year by Beat Scene Press and includes some photos. It sounds like a very worthy project.
Also out this year are issues 112 and 113 of Beat Scene, as well as two digital issues. See their website for details. Hopefully copies of Charters’ book can still be ordered.
Frank O’Hara and Jack Kerouac: Shoot Out at the Living Theatre, by Kevin Ring
This seems to be the latest chapbook from Beat Scene. Again, try to order it via their website. (It’s currently not loading for me but was working when I wrote most of this list last week.)
Gary Snyder: Essential Prose
The Amazon description for this new collection reads:
Here is Gary Snyder’s own selection of his pathbreaking environmental essays, Buddhist journals, poetic notebooks, and more, including previously uncollected material.
What’s not to love about that? You can order it here.
Have I missed anything? I no doubt have. If you can think of additional Beat books from 2025, let me know in the comments. Feel free to mention books forthcoming in 2026 as well.
You should also check out the Allen Ginsberg Project’s 2025 recommendations list here. There are some books that I’ve not mentioned above because I’d say they’re more broadly countercultural than “Beat.”
Next year, look out for more great Beat books, including two from Beatdom: Thomas Antonic’s study of the three (yes, three!) wives of William S. Burroughs and Marc Olmsted’s collection of works on Buddhism and the Beats. We also have a book lined up for early 2027 about Edie Parker. Subscribe for announcements about those…
More Beat Reading…
As it’s the end of the year, and to save spamming you with another email/post, I will mention that 2025 has been a big year for this relatively new Beatdom newsletter. In addition to updates of the sort you have just read, I want to use this platform to post long-form investigative and discursive essays about the Beat Generation. In 2025, we have made various discoveries that I’ll just mention briefly here in case you missed them:
1. The biggest of these was Thomas Antonic’s discovery that William S. Burroughs married a Mexican woman in 1949 (whilst he was in a common-law marriage with Joan Vollmer). This will be included in his forthcoming book but it was such a huge discovery that we had to announce it as an essay first:
2. Ok, it’s not Beat news… but on the 20th anniversary of the death of Hunter S. Thompson, I finally uncovered the origin of the word “Gonzo.” It was widely known that Bill Cardoso gave him the term, but this essay explains that Cardoso found it about a week earlier in an article on Baba Ram Dass. Here’s the full story:
3. Most Beat experts know that William S. Burroughs probably heard about yagé (aka ayahuasca) in some kind of kooky pseudoscience magazine. We finally found the exact magazine article. The research is all explained here:
4. Beat fans also probably know the famous Kerouac quote “Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?” But was it really Kerouac’s quote or did Ginsberg come up with it? Or was it perhaps from an old Russian novel? Here’s the answer:
5. Speaking of Ginsberg, the name “Karena Shields” should be familiar to his fans but little was known about her prior to this essay from April. Actually, she was very famous in the first half of the 20th century, but like so many talented women she has been largely written out of history. It’s a long one, so grab a coffee…
There are many more essays in our archives. Take a look if you feel like exploring Beat history. We also have a long, long list of future essays so once again I will suggest subscribing if you want to stay on top of these discoveries. It’s completely free… but we do have an optional paid tier for those who just want to support the cause and help keep this all accessible for everyone.
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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year.
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