The Beat Generation in San Francisco: A Literary Tour

by Bill Morgan

Book Overview

The ultimate literary guide to San Francisco, packed with fabulous photos and scintillating anecdotes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872864170
• ISBN13: 9780872864177
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

San Francisco before things changed.

I lived in The City from '67 to '73 and was there during the heyday of Haight Ashbury and the mammoth explosion of all that was pre-Altimont but for some strange reason Beat San Francisco was far more important in my memory than The Haight. The reasons probably have much to do with why I finished Morgan's short book in only a day because I became so involved in his descriptions of the places that I considered my San Francisco-all of Upper Grant after it crosses Columbus with Caffe' Trieste and the New Pisa and of course City Lights, Discovery and Vesuvio with Tosca watching from the other side of the street.Even though I now live on the other side of the planet, these places are burned into my memory. They're memories of cold winter evenings searching for the inevitable bargain in Discovery and then going next door to City Lights to troll through its basement looking at all the titles that I wanted but couldn't afford as a student. And on Saturday afternoons going into Trieste and buying a cafe' and knowing that not so many years ago this place was the epicenter for guys that wore old berets, had beards and thought.I am indebted to Bill Morgan for writing such a heartwarming look back at a time and place that will go on in the hearts of Americans that realize there was a recent time when things could have gone another way. It didn't happen but with people like him keeping the memory alive and people who care enough to take pictures of City Lights for people like me who remember- perhaps all has not been lost. Buy the book and revisit these modern American icons before they are redeveloped.