Book picks similar to
Reality Sandwiches by Allen Ginsberg
poetry
beat
beat-generation
american
Honeybee
Trista Mateer - 2014
It’s not something they say. It’s something about their hands, the shape of their mouths, the way they look walking away from you."A collection that will beg you to be dogeared, coffee-stained, & shared.”—Amanda Lovelace, author of the princess saves herself in this oneHoneybee is an honest take on walking away and still feeling like you were walked away from. It’s about cutting love loose like a kite string and praying the wind has the decency to carry it away from you. It’s an ode to the back and forth, the process of letting something go but not knowing where to put it down. Honeybee is putting it down. It’s small town girls and plane tickets, a taste of tenderness and honey, the bandage on the bee sting. It’s a reminder that you are not defined by the people you walk away from or the people who walk away from you."A spine tingling, heart wrenching, goosebumps-across-your-skin experience."—Nikita Gill, author of Fierce FairytalesPerfect for fans of Caroline Kaufman, Atticus, Clementine von Radics, Nina LaCour, Adam Silvera, and Becky Albertalli; or anyone interested in bisexuality, heartbreak, running away from your problems, and coming out.Look for Trista Mateer's other book of poetry, Aphrodite Made Me Do It and her contribution to [Dis]Connected Volume 1: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise.
For the Union Dead
Robert Lowell - 1964
In the poem, Lowell's visit to the park leads to a series of associations that the dug-up park conjures. First, watching the construction of the underground parking garage beneath the Common makes him think about his childhood and how Boston had changed; in particular, the South Boston Aquarium that he'd visited as a child had recently been demolished in 1954.This leads him to think about the Robert Gould Shaw memorial and the history associated with the memorial (including Robert Gould Shaw and the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry that he led). Finally, Lowell thinks of the then-controversial civil rights movement and the images of the integration of black and white schoolchildren that Lowell had recently seen on television.The final lines of the poem, which read, "The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,/ giant finned cars nose forward like fish;/ a savage servility/ slides by on grease" are particularly well-known for their rather dark description of the large American cars that were popular at the time.
Thank You for Smoking
Christopher Buckley - 1994
In the neo-puritanical nineties, it's a challenge to defend the rights of smokers and a privilege to promote their liberty. Sure, it hurts a little when you're compared to Nazi war criminals, but Nick says he's just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage and put his son through Washington's elite private school St. Euthanasius. He can handle the pressure from the antismoking zealots, but he is less certain about his new boss, BR, who questions whether Nick is worth $150,000 a year to fight a losing war. Under pressure to produce results, Nick goes on a PR offensive. But his heightened notoriety makes him a target for someone who wants to prove just how hazardous smoking can be. If Nick isn't careful, he's going to be stubbed out.
Fat City
Leonard Gardner - 1969
It tells the story of two young boxers out of Stockton, California: Ernie Munger and Billy Tully, one in his late teens, the other just turning thirty, whose seemingly parallel lives intersect for a time. Set in an ambiance of glittering dreams and drab realities, it tells of the two fighters' struggles to escape the confinements of their existence, and of the men and women in their world. Fat City is a novel about the sporting life like no other ever written: without melodrama or false heroics, written with a truthfulness that is at once painful and beautiful.Denis Johnson: "Between the ages of 19 and 25 I studied Leonard Gardner’s book so closely that I began to fear I’d never be able to write anything but imitations of it, so I swore it off(...)When I was about 34 (the same age Gardner was when he published his), my first novel came out. About a year later I borrowed Fat City from the library and read it. I could see immediately that ten years’ exile hadn’t saved me from the influence of its perfection — I’d taught myself to write in Gardner’s style, though not as well. And now, many years later, it’s still true: Leonard Gardner has something to say in every word I write."Joan Didion: "Leonard Gardner's Fat City affected me more than any new fiction I have read in a long while, and I do not think it affected me only because I come from Fat City, or somewhere near it. He has got it exactly right--the hanging around gas stations, the field dust, the relentless oppressiveness of the weather, the bleak liaisons sealed on the levees and Greyhound buses--but he has done more than just get it down, he has made it a metaphor for the joyless in heart."David Wagoner: "The people he writes about are alive and three-dimensional, and have that meaty, sweaty immediacy I admire in novels and find so seldom. It's an odd, interesting world he explores here--as tense and vivid as the prose."Ivan Gold: "Gardner writes with power, with an insider's knowledge, and with a vividness and love for his characters which redeem them even when they're lost and beaten."Harry Mark Petrakis: "A man of real talent. He makes the savage world he writes of come alive to the point where the reader can smell the sweat, and feel the anguish of unremitting failure."Ross Macdonald: "In his pity and art Gardner moves beyond race, beyond guilt and punishment, as Twain and Melville did, into a tragic forgiveness. I have seldom read a novel as beautiful and individual as this one."Originally published in 1969, Fat City is an American classic whose stature has increased over the years. Made into an acclaimed film by John Huston, the book is set in and around Stockton, California.
The Shrinking Man
Richard Matheson - 1956
The radioactivity acts as a catalyst for the bug spray, causing his body to shrink at a rate of approximately 1/7 of an inch per day. A few weeks later, Carey can no longer deny the truth: not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was and deduces, to his dismay, that his body will continue to shrink.