Scriptures for a Generation: What We Were Reading in the '60s - Softcover

Beidler's compendium is a smart and witty primer on the books and writers that informed the youth generation. --Tallahassee Democrat Beidler speaks with the unwavering clarity of someone well-schooled in American literature and culture. --Birmingham News Beidler cogently critiques '60s writers whose books challenged entrenched ideas of race, class, and gender. --Publishers Weekly

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.