Where to begin with 1960s American literature!
For a complete list of the books discussed in this video, visit http://www.climbthestacks.com/blog/2016/6/18/1960s-american-literature
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Great channel getting many good tips to my Book List here☺
Excellent list. I loved Travels With Charlie. The section about the South was very powerful. There were 3 ladies who were heros to white Southerners for yelling at a black girl going to school every day. That part haunted me for a long time. I also loved Slaughterhouse Five and The Crying of Lot 46.
I miss your videos, Ashley!
The Crying of Lot 49 was such a wild read, it seemed really similar to DFW’s The Broom of the System to me, I enjoyed both. I’m curious as to what are some of your post modern recommendations?
Can I just say that I love your videos. I love this video and videos like this. I’ll read The Fire Next Time very soon. 🙂
What is an absurd novel?
Loved this video, I would definitely enjoy more like it. It also may be helpful to give a little more historical context for the period in which these books were produced by.
Hey!
You are one of the best book tuber of 2015..
Check this out(if you don’t know already)
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/the-best-booktubers-of-2015
Do you think that Kerouac’s later works are depressing because he had reached the natural outcome of his lifestyle? Kerouac influenced a generation and sadly many who idolised him met similar or even more tragic ends. It is interesting that his work documents the journey from free-spirited optimism to enslavement and despair.
Don’t you read those books in school in the US?
I’ve recently been super interested in the 60’s so many pushes for change by people actively doing things (positively and negatively) such a cool time to look at.
The Fire Next Time’s a masterpiece.
Great list and thank you for the recommendations.
Thanks for this. It’s helped me get an idea of some writers and books for an American literature course I’m attending early next year. I love Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking so will check out Slouching Towards Bethlehem as well.
catch 22 is my favourite book of all time. Ironically (and much like the book) when I first started it I wanted to throw it out because it made no sense! Go figure..
Thanks for the era specific book recomendation. Definitely going to read at least a few of these. Do you think you’ll ever do a book on post-modern literture. I’m really hate post-modern philosophy, and feel I should read some of the books in that vain. Do you have any recommendation for literary examples of the movment.
Fantastic video – must have been a bit of work. Thanks so much 🙂
So happy you mentioned Trout Fishing in America. A wildly underrated and under appreciated book and author, in my opinion. His book of poetry titled ‘The Pill Vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster’ is great as well.
Watching all of Mad Men also served as a great reminder of just how nutso the 60s was. But I really appreciate all your points and the works you picked, it’s reigniting an interest in the 60s for me. Also: MUST BUY PORTABLE SIXTIES READER.
I’m so glad I found this channel! I’ve been dying to find online literature lover people that read more classics. You seem to be extremely intelligent and thoughtful – I am a bit envious! Haha. I look forward to following your videos now 🙂
I’ve read Ellis (Less than Zero, ROA, AP) and Tom Wolfe (BOTV), but do you know of any other literary fiction or nonfiction that would shed a light on 1980s America?
Love this video so much! Now I want to go on a 60’s reading binge for the rest of summer!!!!
Can you make a video about JT Leroy? It would be great.
Lovely to see you walk through a hand full of big works from a big decade. Would be fun to see you do this for all of the decades. Also, do you follow the ‘All Of The Shelves’ ? — She has been doing a series on American lit decade by decade and it is beyond wonderful.
Gosh, SO many iconic works coming out of one era! Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us, as always!
part of the truth is hidden to us
what part?
the part that we are on
I’m doing/reading The Book Riot challenge and one is to read a book from the decade your were born which was the 60s..I chose William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner which won the Pulitzer and was quite controversial at the time as a white author wrote searingly about a slave’s experience….incredible book
Whenever I watch your videos, I keep bookdepository on stand-by just in case. I already have over a 1000 books, am a literary theory graduate and work in two bookstores, so that is saying a lot! You’re great.
I’m glad and repulsed I found such a kindred spirit
so it’s time to go
and stay at the same place
words are the foam
don’t you know it?
the water makes a big movement
and the foam forms on the surface
most peple live there
you see them every day and every night on TV
don’t you wish you could glop them over the head?
I’m glad and repulsed I found such a kindred spirit
any closer and I would be obliterated
perhaps words
perhaps foam
Great selection! I love Steinbeck, but I haven’t come across “My Trip with Charlie” yet. Definitely added to my TBR list because I’m sure, as you said, American life as he knew it had change dramatically.
Soo many great books.To Kill a Mocking bird = genius,
If you are interested in the 1960s, and in a politically insightful way that dissects how intellectual contributions shaped the decade, you should start with Noam Chomsky, particularly The Responsibility of Intellectuals. It is a profoundly important essay by one of the most important minds of all time that sort of shuffles through the intellectual history of humanity and takes a look at how intellectuals, including the self-proclaimed radicals, have mostly spend their time producing semantically ambivalent verbose treatise that do very little in the way of mobilizing direct action civil disobedience, creating rational public opinion or explaining political issues to the layman, and end up being either idle polemics or some exercise in distorted morality.
Was Portnoy’s Complaint too obscene to bring up?
2:20 i just read some nonfiction about american fighter planes and world war 1 planes were even worst. alot of people crashed, got shot down, or accidentally shot their propellers off and died. some planes wouldnt land correctly so it was kind of funny people even went through with all of it in order to fight in the war to end all wars XD
I read (audiobook so listened to I guess) Catch-22 and I feel like I had no idea what was going on. Obviously the satire was over my head but it would have helped me massively to discuss it with someone. I’m glad that I experienced it though. I can see why it’s a classic even if it wasn’t my favorite.
Great video! I had a great class on the 60s as well in college. Recently I have realized that in the early to mid 60s, at least, World War II still felt very recent and was seen and felt that way by a lot of people, it was still being processed by those who’d lived through it. Thinking about 9/11 and the way it still very much reverberates, I can see that.
USA was not “officially” in Vietnam in ’74 & ’75? The final pullout was ’75. When did historians say the war ended?
I’m more into the non-fiction written in the ’60s or about the ’60s. Strange perhaps but true.
Your videos never cease to impress. Thanks for the great introductions. I have read and enjoyed so many books because of you!
Didion’s The White Album is also great. Kind of a continuation to Slouching.
Thanks so much for this list. I find American history between 1900s-1960s fascinating and the ’60s in particular was such an incredible decade. I’ve read a few of these on your list but am always looking for more recommendations so will definitely be going on a buying spree now. ^^
One flew over the cuckoos nest surely!
I’ve already read a few of these works, and I do recognize all the titles. The 1960s was a great era for literature in the United States and elsewhere.
I found your channel yesterday while I was looking for a bad feminist review and now I can’t stop watching your videos and you have no idea for how long I’ve been wanting to find a channel like yours. I really enjoy the way you express yourself and I am just patiently waiting for new updates in your channel
I think every generation loves stories about the people who lived before them. I was 13 years old in 1963, and I was drawn to stories about the Dust Bowl (The Grapes of Wrath) and the “Great Depression” (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). Anything about the Holocaust just ripped our hearts out! It is strangely comforting to know that this continues on with young readers. Loved this post. Thank you.