Here are 100 books that A Bill of Rites, A Bill of Wrongs, A Bill of Goods fans have personally recommended if you like
A Bill of Rites, A Bill of Wrongs, A Bill of Goods.
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I’m a literary historian and I love reconstructing times in the past with enough factual detail that a reader feels as if they are there with the characters, side-by-side. I didn’t start this way. In fact, I wrote fiction for over a decade. It was only after writing eight atrocious, tension-less, now-in-a-box novels that I realized the books I enjoyed reading most were in the history and biography sections of a bookstore. Still, I was undeniably affected by my years in the trenches of fiction writing. As you may see from my choices, I love reading material from writers attempting to check the pulse of the country at that time.
We Won’t Go is a treasure trove of primary document material combined with personal accounts of regular American citizens objecting to the war in Vietnam. Instead of understanding the issue at a surface level, the stories Lynd collected help us understand the kind of arguments objectors had not just with the government, but also with each other. “If we try to avoid arrest,” wrote one conscientious objector, “or are content to let our friends be arrested instead of ourselves, we hand over to the government the key to deter everyone by jailing a few.” Whether you agree or not, Lynd’s book will give you a variety of perspectives on the issue, along with the actual ‘conscientious objector’ application.
From the back of the book: "We Won't Go is a collection of accounts by men confronted with the dilemma of conscience which military service poses. In addition to the accounts of these war registers, We Won't Go contains the full text of the Seeger decision, a copy of the application for conscientious objector status, a selection of documents related to war crimes, and a list of sources of information for those who are faced with the problem of the draft."
I’m a literary historian and I love reconstructing times in the past with enough factual detail that a reader feels as if they are there with the characters, side-by-side. I didn’t start this way. In fact, I wrote fiction for over a decade. It was only after writing eight atrocious, tension-less, now-in-a-box novels that I realized the books I enjoyed reading most were in the history and biography sections of a bookstore. Still, I was undeniably affected by my years in the trenches of fiction writing. As you may see from my choices, I love reading material from writers attempting to check the pulse of the country at that time.
You can’t fairly assess the sixties without understanding one of the counterculture’s more prominent antagonists. In his sharp and at times scathing syndicated columns, William F. Buckley gave the Republican party some intellectual ground to stand on as the war in Vietnam escalated. This collection of his work, read in tandem with Lynd’s book, should give readers a sharp understanding of the tension coursing through the nation in 1968. Love him or hate him, his April 9, 1968 editorial, ‘The End of Martin Luther King,’ is worth a read. “Whatever [King’s] virtues and whatever his faults,” wrote Buckley, “he did not deserve assassination.”
THE JEWELER'S EYE, William Buckley is clearly at his best. He takes on everyone and everything-Gore Vidal, H. Rap Brown homosexuality, Playboy, Red China, Beatle John Lennon, the poll tax, Norman Mailer-you name it. But he never loses his poise, or lets up in his love affair with the English language.
I’m a literary historian and I love reconstructing times in the past with enough factual detail that a reader feels as if they are there with the characters, side-by-side. I didn’t start this way. In fact, I wrote fiction for over a decade. It was only after writing eight atrocious, tension-less, now-in-a-box novels that I realized the books I enjoyed reading most were in the history and biography sections of a bookstore. Still, I was undeniably affected by my years in the trenches of fiction writing. As you may see from my choices, I love reading material from writers attempting to check the pulse of the country at that time.
I love books that use original interviews and granular detail to recreate specific moments in history. Rosenbloom’s book is a well-paced narrative rich with unique descriptions. There are several books about Dr. King’s assassination, but the reason I appreciate Rosenbloom’s account is that he attempts to recreate without agenda what is arguably the most traumatic moment of 1968. In Rosenbloom’s words: “This book is, most of all, a close-up view of King as he struggled against enormous odds to end poverty in America.” It’s a struggle that continues today.
An “immersive, humanizing, and demystifying” (Charles Blow, New York Times) look at the final hours of Dr. King’s life as he seeks to revive the non-violent civil rights movement and push to end poverty in America.
At 10:33 a.m. on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., landed in Memphis on a flight from Atlanta. A march that he had led in Memphis six days earlier to support striking garbage workers had turned into a riot, and King was returning to prove that he could lead a violence-free protest.
King’s reputation as a credible, non-violent leader of the civil…
I’m a literary historian and I love reconstructing times in the past with enough factual detail that a reader feels as if they are there with the characters, side-by-side. I didn’t start this way. In fact, I wrote fiction for over a decade. It was only after writing eight atrocious, tension-less, now-in-a-box novels that I realized the books I enjoyed reading most were in the history and biography sections of a bookstore. Still, I was undeniably affected by my years in the trenches of fiction writing. As you may see from my choices, I love reading material from writers attempting to check the pulse of the country at that time.
I very nearly put an LBJ or RFK book here, but there’s a greater chance you haven’t heard or may have forgotten Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy’s well-written account of his 1968 political campaign. McCarthy’s insightful memoir gives 21st-century readers a window back into that year of endless drama and conflict. It will also cause some to compare the book’s place in history with Senator Bernie Sanders’s Our Revolution. “1968,” wrote McCarthy, “was the year in which the people, in so far as the system and the process would permit, asserted themselves and demonstrated their willingness to make hard political judgments and to take full responsibility for those judgments. And in so doing they acted with more spirit and commitment than did many political leaders.”
This book is the story of one year, told by the man whose candidacy gave people a symbol and a voice. Senator Eugene J. McCarthy helped to create the new politics with a campaign run on issues, rather than personalities; a candidate seeking not to enlarge his personal power but to restore power to the people, especially those whose opinions often seemed to be in the minority. He had the courage to challenge the traditional system - including his party, the President and his policies - and in the process swept a new spirit, a new vitality, and a new…
From my term paper in 11th grade on Life After Death, I’ve always been fascinated with what happens when we pass away, reincarnation, and all things unexplained. After I lost a few important people in my life, I was more compelled than ever to find answers. A trip to a medium, who mentioned the challenges we’re meant to learn and the fact that we reincarnate with the same “soul family,” sent me off to the races reading every book I could find on the topic. What I uncovered left me wanting to tell a story of my own that would leave people wondering if there’s more than we realize—before, during, and after this life.
From my eleventh-grade term paper about life after death, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of reincarnation.
This extremely insightful book only fueled that interest. It explores the idea that our souls pre-plan the challenges in each lifetime with purpose.
This book made me look at the struggles I’ve experienced much differently. Now the question I always ask myself is, “What was I supposed to learn from that?”
In his groundbreaking first book, Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born, Robert Schwartz brought the idea of pre-birth planning into the mainstream. Now, his compelling sequel delves even deeper. With detailed discussion and the deeply personal stories of his interviewees, Schwartz offers an incredible guide map to the soul and encourages his readers to heal at a profound level. Through complex ideas such as the development of greater self-love, an emergence from victim consciousness, and understanding the qualities you came into this lifetime to cultivate and express, Schwartz bestows practical…
I was a teenager in the up-tight, homophobic, misogynist 50s that today’s right wing-nuts would like to inflict on us again. Born in 1941, I was a few years older than friends and relatives who homesteaded where land was cheap and neighbours tolerant, I shared their abhorrence of the Vietnam War. I admired them for daring to reject “the system,” but I was also troubled by their lack of foresight, which so often led to calamity. A lifetime later, some survivors of those hopeful times remain where they homesteaded; and many of those who left are still pursuing love, peace, and happiness.
Finder curated a retrospective collection of 60s books, theatre, music, television, poetry, architecture, and politics. It opens with passages from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, James Baldwin on civil rights, and Hannah Arendt on Eichmann.
Then John Updike muses on the big bang theory, E. J. Kahn, Jr. captures Harvard professors’ view of student protest. Next Kenneth Tynan reviews Bye Bye Birdie, Lillian Ross listens to Sergeant Pepper, then teams with Jane Kramer to parse Marshal McLuhan. Robert Rice muses on the humour of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and A. J. Liebling looks at Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali… and much more.
It’s a cornucopia of well-written, intellectually stimulating prose and poetry written in and about a perplexing decade. It illuminates what I remember—even when I don’t agree—and makes me aware of much that I missed, misunderstood, or misinterpreted at…
This fascinating anthology collects notable New Yorker pieces from the most tumultuous years of the twentieth century—including work by James Baldwin, Pauline Kael, Sylvia Plath, Roger Angell, and Muriel Spark—alongside new assessments of the 1960s by some of today’s finest writers.
Here are real-time accounts of these years, brought to immediate and profound life: Calvin Trillin reports on the integration of Southern universities, E. B. White and John Updike wrestle with the enormity of the Kennedy assassination, and Jonathan Schell travels with American troops into the jungles of Vietnam. Some of the truly timeless works of American journalism came out…
I was a teenager in the up-tight, homophobic, misogynist 50s that today’s right wing-nuts would like to inflict on us again. Born in 1941, I was a few years older than friends and relatives who homesteaded where land was cheap and neighbours tolerant, I shared their abhorrence of the Vietnam War. I admired them for daring to reject “the system,” but I was also troubled by their lack of foresight, which so often led to calamity. A lifetime later, some survivors of those hopeful times remain where they homesteaded; and many of those who left are still pursuing love, peace, and happiness.
Walt Kelly’s tales of Pogo Possum and Albert the Alligator in the Okefenokee Swamp began in 1948. Like many daily cartoon strips it featured anthropomorphic characters. The humour was sweet, gentle, and “ridickelwockle,” letting Pogo fly under the radar of censorship until they noticed that Kelly was lampooning politicians. “Family” newspapers banned the strip, but Kelly had captured his readers’ hearts.
Walt Kelley expressed the essence of the anti-Vietnam War protest when he had Pogo say, “We have seen the enemy and he is us.”
As an author of historical fiction, I have a number of time periods that I go back to again and again. Both the 1960s (specifically, the late 1960s) and the 1990s are two of those eras that I just can’t get enough of. The parallels between these two time periods are very compelling: both were times of political upheaval and amazing music, with young people leading the charge, hoping to create a better world than the one they were disenchanted with.
A sweet story of a young woman named Joanne, coming of age in California during the height of the Flower Power movement, who meets and falls in love with a “hippie”, much to the chagrin of her parents.
Martin introduces her to a world of drugs, protests, and music, and her life will never be the same.
It's 1967 and fifteen-year-old Joanne's San Francisco neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury has become inundated with hippies for the "Summer of Love," which thrills her but appalls the rest of her family. In the midst of preparations for her sister's wedding, Joanne meets Martin, an enigmatic and irresistible hippie, and begins to see him secretly. Over the course of the next year, Joanne discovers a world of drugs, antiwar demonstrations, and psychedelic dances that both fascinates and frightens her. As this world collides with her family's values, Joanne must decide whether to stay with her middle-class family and pursue her love of…
I’ve always been fascinated by the American counter-culture and its promise to change society, be it with radical lifestyles, drugs, or creating new cultural settings. I was going to study this from a more sociological approach until I discovered the history of the psychedelic movement and its promise to create a new society by reforming American individuals from within. Although I wound up becoming more interested in what the counter-culture actually achieved rather than dwelling on its excesses, I am currently working on a new book project that will shed light on an organization that managed to achieve both.
I found this book extremely important because it finally put to bed the myth that counter-cultural women were merely subservient to their male counterparts, while these women did so much to actually shape the counter-culture.
I recommend reading this alongside Nina Graboi’s criminally neglected autobiography–One Foot in the Future–that serves as a perfect illustration of American women successfully looking for empowerment in these counter-cultural enclaves.
It was a sign of the sixties. Drawn by the promise of spiritual and creative freedom, thousands of women from white middle-class homes rejected the suburban domesticity of their mothers to adopt lifestyles more like those of their great-grandmothers. They eagerly learned 'new' skills, from composting to quilting, as they took up the decade's quest for self-realization. 'Hippie women' have alternately been seen as earth mothers or love goddesses, virgins or vamps - images that have obscured the real complexity of their lives. Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo now takes readers back to Haight Ashbury and country communes to reveal how they experienced…
I have been fascinated with the sixties and its counterculture ever since I was about eleven or twelve, and I found out that the summer I was born, 1967, was called the Summer of Love. Because of this fascination, I started reading writers like Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson at an early age. Then, I became a lover of the Grateful Dead and went on tour with them as a fan for a couple of years in my late teens. It was the best way remaining in this country, in the 1980s, to be a hippie in some real way. I still love the music and literature of that time.
This heavy, sardonic novel about a commune of hippies whose utopian dream is rapidly fraying kept me totally compelled and frequently laughing all the way through.
They find land in Alaska and try to move their scene to the great North, but the realities of weather and wilderness don’t conform to their plans.
It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life has decided to relocate to the last frontier-the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska-in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. Armed with the spirit of adventure and naive optimism, the inhabitants of "Drop City" arrive in the wilderness of Alaska only to find their utopia already populated by other young homesteaders. When the two communities collide, unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over one's head. Rich,…
