3 New Beat Books Coming Soon
Beatdom will soon release a trio of new publications about the Beat Generation.
As most of you will already know, Beatdom #25 will be released on October 7, to mark the 70th anniversary of the 6 Gallery reading. This will be a special issue focused on the San Francisco Renaissance. We also have two other books about the Beats coming in late 2025.
On October 7, we will not only release Beatdom #25 but also a book about the 6 Gallery reading. Incredibly, this is the first book about that pivotal event. In spite of it generally being acknowledged as one of the most important moments in Beat history, no one had written more than a few paragraphs about it until now, and those paragraphs were generally based upon a handful of unreliable sources. (There’s a list of 6 Gallery myths here.)
A Remarkable Collection of Angels: A History of the 6 Gallery Reading is the first serious attempt to explain how and why that event took place and to say what really happened that night and in the following weeks. It is a long and complex story that follows about two dozen central characters and aims to give the history of the strange building where it took place. Whilst not every fact can be stated with certainty, it brings us far closer than before—indeed closer than one would think possible—to understanding a key moment in Beat history, in San Francisco history, and in the history of American literature. Here’s the table of contents, which should give you a good idea of what to expect:
Our next publication is The Bunker Diaries, a memoir by Stewart Meyer, author of The Lotus Crew. Meyer was a close associate of William S. Burroughs during the seventies and eighties and this book details their friendship. It is filled with Burroughs’ wisdom, which comes in many forms, including advice on writing that he handed down to Meyer, who for much of this period was working on his first novel. Here is one example:
You want to write a great book or paint a great painting, you might have to first take yourself over the edge. But as a writer, as an artist, your primary responsibility is to come back and do the work.
The book is also filled with the amusing antics of Gregory Corso and Herbert Huncke, and we get to drop in on conversations between Allen Ginsberg and Burroughs, sometimes with Peter Orlovsky in the background, hyped up on amphetamines and busying himself by scrubbing the kitchen. The Bunker Diaries will go on sale November 1, 2025.
Now we circle back to Beatdom #25. This issue focuses on the San Francisco Renaissance, an explosion of poetic activity that Jack Kerouac said began with the 6 Gallery reading but which some would argue had already begun before that night. We have essays on the reading itself as well as earlier and later poetry readings, and we have work that focuses on different poets involved in the movement: Madeline Gleason, Robert Duncan, ruth weiss, Bob Kaufman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others. We are currently editing the journal and will release a finalised table of contents soon.
Each of these publications is available for pre-order via our website or you can wait until they are released and find them at your favourite book retailer. If you pre-order, we will ship your books for free and the price is at a slight discount from the RRP. If you pre-order all three books together, we will give you a further discount.
We always ship pre-ordered books ahead of the publication date. We cannot guarantee you will receive them before that date, but we do our best and usually manage to get them there early. This is easier with those living in the UK or the USA.
These books will be available in e-book format on their respective release dates. We offer discounts on the RRP for bookstores and educational facilities. We are also able to provide review copies of these titles. Get in touch via our website if you have any questions or problems ordering.
If you are interested in our other books and journal issues, you can see a full list of Beatdom titles here. We also have a few more books lined up for 2026 that we will announce later, so don’t forget to subscribe…