Vagobond

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest (1972) is an anti-colonial novella she herself called a preachment, and still one of her fiercest books.

My Vocabulary Did This to Me (2008) collects Jack Spicer, the San Francisco poet who denied authorship of his own work and is named by his dying words.

How I Became Hettie Jones (1990) is the memoir of the woman who co-edited Yugen and Totem Press, and put the Beat writers into print before anyone knew them.

Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (1956) survived a San Francisco obscenity trial to become the founding document of the Beat Generation in printed form.

Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters (1983) tells the Beat story from the women's side of the room, and is the best-written book the movement produced about itself.