Holiday Season upon us and it’s time now for our annual holiday book recommendations. Quite a number of great books published this year. We started in January with one of the best of them, Oliver Harris‘ provocative page-turner, memoir/detective story for Moloko Print, One Shot – A Beat Generation Mystery. Moloko Print are also responsible for a number of other titles that most certainly would make it to this list – Ordinary Stupid People, Catherine Marshall and Simon Johnson‘s original research on the early life of Joan Vollmer (Burroughs) (actually a 2024 publication but we’re including it here), and, (hot off the presses) Oliver Harris’ most recent William Burroughs contribution, Roosevelt After Inauguration – Redux
Speaking of Burroughs, another of our favorite presses, Beatdom. New titles this year included Stewart Mayer‘s The Bunker Diaries (and not forgetting Victor Bockris‘ The Burroughs-Warhol Connection from last year). Beatdom’s own David S Wills also presented (much anticipated, and one of the great books of the year) – A Remarkable Collection of Angels – A History of the 6 Gallery Reading.
Jack Kerouac – the wonderful posthumous publications (from Sal Paradise Press (the Jack Kerouac Estate) in conjunction with Rare Bird Books, continue with Charles Shuttleworth‘s edition of The Buddhist Years – Collected Writings. A must-read.
Speaking of Collected Writings – another monumental occasion – the publication by Library of America of Gary Snyder‘s Essential Prose (a handsome and necessary companion to 2022’s Collected Poems) – “This volume gathers the essential prose writings of our “poet laureate of Deep Ecology,” spanning the entire arc of his seventy-year career and sounding his deepest themes”.
Cosmic Scholar, John Szwed‘s much-anticipated 2023 biography of the legendary Harry Smith was much-appreciated title of that year. This year saw the publication of a valuable addition to the Smith canon – The Occult Harry Smith – The Magical & Alchemical Work of An Artist of the Extremes”, a suitably eclectic gathering of recollections, appreciations and miscellaneous materials, edited and introduced by Peter Valente
Biographies? – two (quite disparate) biographies published this year that we’ll happily draw your attention to – Dan Nadel‘s Crumb – A Cartoonist’s Life, and Nathan Kernan‘s long-awaited biography of “New York School” poet, James Schuyler, A Day Like Any Other – The Life of James Schuyler
Another long-awaited over-view –Steven Belletto‘s – Black Surrealist – The Legend of Ted Joans
Pat Thomas, who’s 2023 Ginsberg compendium, Material Wealth – Mining The Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg , is another absolutely must-have essential item (and who’s other books are well-worth seeking out), came up with yet another compelling title this year – Evergreen Review – Dispatches from the Literary Underground – Covers and Essays 1957-1973, “every front cover from 1957 to 1973″, as well as hundreds of pages as they appeared in that hugely-influential magazine.
Speaking of elegant books, how about this? – Allen Ginsberg, as he was published this year, in Russian!
Some notable gatherings:
Jayne Cortez – Firespitter – The Collected Poems of Jayne Cortez
Ron Padgett (a very welcome updating!)
LGBTQ hero, Charles Shively
speaking of Charles Shively, we can’t not recommend this – Behind The State Capitol – the reissue
and there’s more.. Neeli Cherkovski’s well-earned, posthumously published, City Lights book, The Portable Gallery Called Existence. (And speaking of Neeli, from the incomparable Lithic Press, we now have his Selected Poems)
And there’s more – and we can go on – apologies for titles not herein listed.
We’ll conclude with one more absolutely essential book (we excerpted from it just last week), Patti Smith‘s moving and hard-won memoir (don’t miss out on that!) Bread of Angels
Keep on reading!