Washoe County Library System

With an intricate storyline that unites engaging characters and themes and reads like a novel, Bop Apocalypse details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new and revolutionary segment of the American social fabric. Drawing upon his rich decades of writing experience, master storyteller Martin Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, Mezz...

"A biography of filmmaker, anthropologist, and mystic Harry Smith"-- "Grammy Award–winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed presents the first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture. He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe about the occult, swapped drugs with Timothy Leary,...

"The Beat Hotel has been closed for nearly forty years. But for a brief period - from just after the publication of Howl in 1957 until the building was sold in 1963 - it was home to Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin, Peter Orlovsky, Harold Norse, and a host of other luminaries of the Beat Generation. Now, Barry Miles - acclaimed author of many books on the Beats and a personal acquaintance of many of them - vividly excavates...