Were they angel-headed hipsters, dope smoking dropouts or the most exciting group of writers in postwar American literature? Their stories of drugs, sex and the search for an alternative to 'squaresville' have cornered the market in cult literature, remaining hip even while being taught on university courses and in schools. On the Road, Naked Lunch and Howl have become milestones of underground literature and the key Beats (Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg) are mythic figures of contemporary pop culture. This Pocket Essential provides an introductory essay examining the importance of the writers and their work in American culture. Separate chapters are devoted to the lives and work of Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac. Later chapters discuss the other members of this movement (Neal Cassady, Herbert Huncke and many more), the Beats on film, and their influence on the counterculture of the 60s.

This book uses cultural and psycho-social analysis to examine the beat writer Charles Bukowski and his literature, focusing on representations of the anti-hero rebel and outsider. Clements considers the complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions represented by the author and his work, exploring Bukowski’s visceral writing of the cultural ordinary and everyday self-narrative. The study considers Bukowski’s apolitical, gendered, and working-class stance to understand how the writer represents reality and is represented with regards to counter-cultural literature. In addition, Clements provides a broader socio-cultural focus that evaluates counterculture in relation to the American beat movement and mythology, highlighting the male cool anti-hero. The cultural practices and discourses utilized to situate Bukowski include the individual and society, outsiderdom, cult celebrity, fan embodiment, and disneyfication, providing a greater understanding of the beat generation and counterculture literature.

The hilarious adventures of Harry the Polis as recalled by ex-polis Harry Morris, the self-appointed Chief Constable of funny stories, continue with the publication of his tenth book, The Last Night on the Beat. Full of brilliant anecdotes, oddball characters, quick comebacks and unlikely excuses, Harry demonstrates true Glaswegian humour at its finest. Harry Morris is out to show a side of our industrious police force that we don't often see - the lighter side. His time with the Glasgow and Strathclyde constabulary, or 'polis' for short, hasn't robbed Harry of his sense of humour, and every wily witness, cocky con, and sarcastic sergeant he ever rubbed up against is here in page after page of humorous stories. Here is the definitive collection of Harry the Polis tales that will tempt your laughter lines into making an appearance and have you flashing your gnashers.

Readers and acolytes of the vital early 1950s-mid 1960s writers known as the Beat Generation tend to be familiar with the prose and poetry by the seminal authors of this period: Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane Di Prima, and many others. Yet all of these authors, as well as other less well-known Beat figures, also wrote plays-and these, together with their countercultural approaches to what could or should happen in the theatre-shaped the dramatic experiments of the playwrights who came after them, from Sam Shepard to Maria Irene Fornes, to the many vanguard performance artists of the seventies. This volume, the first of its kind, gathers essays about the exciting work in drama and performance by and about the Beat Generation, ranging from the well-known Beat figures such as Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, to the “Afro-Beats” - LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Bob Kaufman, and others. It offers original studies of the women Beats - Di Prima, Bunny Lang - as well as groups like the Living Theater who in this era first challenged the literal and physical boundaries of the performance space itself.

This is the ultimate guide to Jack Kerouac's New York, packed with photos from the '50s and '60s, and filled with information and anecdotes about the people and places that made history.

A former member of London’s MP Flying Squad pays tribute to his fellow officers in a gripping and emotional true crime chronicle of duty and sacrifice. Dick Kirby of London’s Serious Crime Squad shares ten stories of courage spanning fifty years of crime enforcement in the Metropolitan Police. In honoring the selfless men and women who gave their lives, Kirby sheds light on the ever-present dangers of street patrol—from confrontations at public protests to being caught in the middle of a gang war to answering a seemingly run-of-the-mill call at a quiet residence. Here are the true stories of extraordinary lives cut short: WPC Yvonne Fletcher gunned-down while policing a demonstration at the Libyan Embassy; Detective Sergeant Ray Purdy, taken out while arresting a common blackmailer; PC Ray Summers, an officer with less than two years’ service, stabbed to death as he broke up a gang fight; a three-man crew in an unmarked ‘Q’ car wiped out by gunmen; PC Nat Edgar, shot by a burglar; PC Patrick Dunne, a home-beat officer murdered while investigating a domestic dispute; the horrific bombing of Herrods department store which cost three brave police officers their lives; and the murder of PC Stephen Tibble, which sparked investigations into the IRA. Drawing deeply on his knowledge and contacts within and outside the Metropolitan Police, Kirby explores the lives and deaths of these officers, and the trauma endured by the colleagues and loved ones they left behind. “I am delighted that Dick Kirby has written this book. Such heroes should be remembered.” —Michael Winner, director of Death Wish, from the Forward

Any musician who composes or transcribes music or who plays accompaniment to a soloist will have a need to know what the chords are for the accompaniment. There are also occasions when the published chords to a piece are in error, and there is a need to know how to recognize and correct them. Simply put, the process of harmonizing chords to melody is all about identifying chord tones and intervals in a melody and determining the chords they imply. The decision to survey the literature on harmonizing chords was made because no single textbook on harmony could be found that extensively treated the subject. Of the scores of textbooks referenced herein, each one would touch upon or tell only part of the story. What was obviously needed was a book that gathered all the relevant materials in one place and outlined a practical procedure for harmonizing a melody. This document attempts to do this. The word harmonization as used here refers to the process of finding appropriate chords to accompany a melody. Hence, when we harmonize a melody, we create a chord accompaniment for it. The most beautiful melody may be ruined by a poor and inappropriate chord accompaniment, or a poor melody can be made interesting by an apt chord accompaniment. The intended purpose of this work is to provide suitable accompaniment chords only to a given melody in lead sheet format. The piece could then be performed by musicians playing the melody and chords together. This could be done either by two musicians, a soloist, and an accompanist or by a keyboard player who would play both melody and chords. It is not intended that a harmonizing bass line or other harmonizing voices be added to the given melody. It is also a primary purpose of this work to enable the transformation of raw melody into diatonic music by harmonizing only diatonic chords to it.