King Of The Beats

Jack Kerouac

The complete, provocative and intimate portrait of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers: 
 
'Thorough and enthralling ... An excellent portrait.' Mail on Sunday

[Miles's] mastery of Beat Generation know-how must surely be unrivalled.

Thorough and enthralling ... An excellent portrait.

Barry Miles is a bestselling author of numerous biographies and cultural histories of the Beat Generation luminaries, The Beatles, the sixties movements and its musicians. He lives in London and France.

In conformist 1950s America, Jack Kerouac's On the Road was greeted with both delirium and dismay, but in Kerouac's hunt for the big experience and his longing for greatness, he has inspired each successive generation. 
 
Jack Kerouac is now an icon, and this provocative and intimate portrait of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers, reveals a man full of contradictions, rarely at peace with himself. Barry Miles, friend and official biographer of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, provides a meticulously researched exploration of the complex man and extraordinary writer whose creative mishmash of joyous incoherence, drug-induced ecstasy, genuine mysticism and constant craving has persuaded so many to take to the road.

El Hombre Invisible

William Burroughs

Repackaged and refreshed, this seminal biography of a counter-cultural icon is re-issued to form a core part of the Virgin backlist: 
 
'[Miles's] mastery of Beat Generation know-how must surely be unrivalled.' Sunday Telegraph

Miles traces threads of Burroughs' images from childhood to tough elder genius, isolating sensitive themes, following recurrences and evolution of routines, clarifying Burroughs' comic pathetic heroic philosophies and insights into coherent whole. Miles familiarises even old close readers with a fine map of Burroughs' mind.

There can be no more effective introduction.

Gives shape to a life that would otherwise seem crowded and aimless.

Barry Miles is a bestselling author of numerous biographies and cultural histories of the Beat Generation luminaries, The Beatles, the sixties movements and its musicians. He lives in London.

Iconoclast; visionary; homosexual crusader; drug advocate; teacher and elder statesman to the Beats: William Burroughs remains one of the most complex and controversial American writers of the twentieth century. 
 
After killing his wife in a bizarre shooting accident, Burroughs moved to Tangier where he lived in a male brothel and wrote his celebrated bestseller Naked Lunch - in Newsweek's words 'A masterpiece. A cry from Hell' and spent much of the rest of his life in self-imposed exile from the United States. Following Burroughs' death in August 1997, Barry Miles updated his riveting, highly readable and unconventional biography of this legendary provocateur and all-round thorn in the side of the establishment.

Beat Poet

Allen Ginsberg

Repackaged and refreshed, this seminal biography of a counter-cultural icon is re-issued to form a core part of the Virgin backlist 
 
 
'Will surely be consulted as an Ur-text for decades to come. Read it to the end... and you'll know why he matters.' Michael Horowitz, Sunday Times

This is a scholarly work and also much fun.

Will surely be consulted as an Ur-text for decades to come. Read it at the end, along with Ginsberg's fifteen best books, and you'll know why he matters.

Skilfully evokes the poet's childhood, authoritatively expresses his opinions on sundry matters of later life and work, gives him his due as lifeforce of youthful rebellion and in the 1960s counter. Read it; you'll enjoy yourself.

Concentrating on the simultaneity of the public and private in Ginsberg's life, Miles gives us a richer insight into his poetic value - and a better read - than many a tight-lipped critical filleting.

Barry Miles is author of many seminal books on popular culture, including the authorised biography of Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now; Ginsberg: A Biography; Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats and The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso in Paris, 1957-1963.

Allen Ginsberg occupies a significant and enduring position in American literature. Following Ginsberg's death in 1997, Barry Miles has drawn on both his long friendship with the poet and on Ginsberg's journals and correspondence to produce an immensely readable account of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary poets.

Charles Bukowski

THE DEFINITIVE BUKOWSKI STORY IN MASS MARKET PAPERBACK FOR THE FIRST TIME

'Fear makes me a writer, fear and a lack of confidence' 
 
Charles Bukowski chronicled the seedy underside of the city in which he spent most of his life, Los Angeles. His heroes were the panhandlers and hustlers, the drunks and the hookers, his beat the racetracks and strip joints and his inspiration a series of dead-end jobs in warehouses, offices and factories. It was in the evenings that he would put on a classical record, open a beer and begin to type... 
 
Brought up by a violent father, Bukowski suffered childhood beatings before developing horrific acne and withdrawing into a moody adolescence. Much of his young life epitomised the style of the Beat generation - riding Greyhound buses, bumming around and drinking himself into a stupor. During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office, Factotum, Women and Pulp. His novels sold millions of copies worldwide in dozens of languages. 
 
In this definitive biography Barry Miles, celebrated author of Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats, turns his attention to the exploits of this hard-drinking, belligerent wild man of literature.

Barry Miles

Miles ...was right in the groovy swim from the start. He was Mr Alternative before the Beatles of the Rolling Stones got going ... Miles was the one they all liked, confided in and trusted with their lives (at least their published ones).

The Beats. a title that Jack Kerouac coined to define the exhausted exaltation of a generation, produced a body of works infected with a new energy. Their spontaneous, often-unedited style epitomised their own era and their famed close-knit literary community continues to inspire writers today. 
Barry Miles, friend and biographerof Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, was there , part of the Beat Vibe. here he gathers together some of the most influential as well as the most overlooked writers of the era. He covers the writings from The Original Beats (New York 1944-53): The San Francisco Scene (1954-57) and The Second Wave (New York 1958-60) including works from Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frank O'Hara, Diane di Prima and Alexander Trocchi to the king of the Beats Himself, Jack Kerouac. 
The result is a fascinating compendium that recaptures the unique but varied voices of the Beat generation..

Barry Miles

Praise for Beat Collection

Miles ...was right in the groovy swim from the start. He was Mr Alternative before the Beatles of the Rolling Stones got going ... Miles was the one they all liked, confided in and trusted with their lives (at least ...

[Miles's] mastery of Beat Generation know-how must surely be unrivalled.

Books by Barry Miles

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