Beats In Time: A Literary Generation’s Legacy

“Ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time …” — Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”

I’m proud to announce the publication of Beats In Time: A Literary Generation’s Legacy, a selection of the best eighteen pieces about the Beat Generation from the Literary Kicks archives.

Here’s the Amazon page where you can buy the book for Kindle (either a Kindle device or, if you don’t have one, Kindle software available for free for all platforms). Here’s more information about the book, including the complete table of contents.


The cover artwork is by David Richardson, who recently illustrated a series of Litkicks articles about Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

I’m very proud of this book, and of the excellent writings that appeared on this site over the years from John Perry Barlow, Jim Stedman, Don Carpenter, Lee Ranaldo, Patricia Elliot, Laki Vazakas, Ray Freed, Sarah Duff, Joseph Matheny, Jamelah Earle, Michael McClure, Bill Ectric and others that made it possible.

14 Responses

  1. Well, I am a huge ignoramus
    Well, I am a huge ignoramus about the Beat Generation (I only read ON THE ROAD), but I wish you good luck man. I know you get quality stuff out there.

  2. Well done, sir.
    Love the

    Well done, sir.

    Love the effort you’ve been putting into these releases. Lessons for us all in putting our content into different containers.

    And it’s the Beats! I’m always ranting about writer’s being so subdued and submissive these days and for me the Beats represent the last generation of dissident writers in the US.

    Good stuff all around. Keep em coming, Levi.

  3. Congrats, Levi… from this
    Congrats, Levi… from this end it looks like a winner.

  4. Bill, that may be Jamelah,
    Bill, that may be Jamelah, but with a Gary Snyder tale.

  5. Don’t know if the girl with
    Don’t know if the girl with the pony tail resembles Jamelah, hope it does her justice if it does. I was actually thinking of a girl who read Beat poetry in high school art class while she made a painting of a girl for her senior project whose belly grew larger and larger during the semester in proportion to the actual child growing in her own belly. They kept her back but let her matriculate the next year. She named the child Corso.

  6. This is exciting, and if the
    This is exciting, and if the cover is any indication of what lies within, then you’ve really given us a gift. I’ve seen Richardson’s Proust characters and knowing the novel his illustrations are spot on, so if this is cover is any indication I’d bet heavily on anything or all works you promote.
    Congratulations and merci beaucoup from a 74 year ex-pat living in France who knew the beats and am thrilled to have them bounce back.

  7. Why not give us the lowdown
    Why not give us the lowdown on the other four in the painting? The guy with the stubble beard and navy stripped shirt looks Greek, and is that Woody Allen in the beret? Must be interesting stories behind each character. These are true literary kicks.

  8. Though seductive your
    Though seductive your question makes me leery about giving away all my secrets and I also wonder if the book might better be served were the discussion not to linger on the cover but the contents where the jazz really plays.
    But the idea, you will see it immediately, and hopefully not condemn me for an obvious overuse of Eliot’s Dictum that the good poet borrows, the great poet steals, sprang from Marie Laurencin’s group portrait of herself, Appolinaire, Picasso and Fernande Olivier,
    ur-Beatniks all.

  9. carry on brother
    carry on brother Levi….great articles by awesome writers…helluva recipe for the cyber writing age….

  10. Congratulations, folks,
    Congratulations, folks, although I don’t understand why you need the beatnik imagery.

  11. Hello, Levi —
    Hello, Levi —
    So many years (and so much water under the bridge) since you and I first connected. I am glad to see that you have ‘bound’-ed, and am honored to find my Montgomery selection as one of your pieces.
    I don’t know why it took me so long to discover that this book had been published… but now that I have I will surely be ordering some copies.
    Cheers, my friend,
    Jim

  12. Great to hear from you, Jim
    Great to hear from you, Jim Stedman! I wanted to contact you but since we haven’t spoken since the late 90s, I didn’t have a current email address. I was trusting that you’d eventually Google your name (that always works). Let me know what you think of the book — your piece on John Montgomery was one of the highlights.

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Litkicks will turn 30 years old in the summer of 2024! We can’t believe it ourselves. We don’t run as many blog posts about books and writers as we used to, but founder Marc Eliot Stein aka Levi Asher is busy running two podcasts. Please check out our latest work!