The best hippie book you have EVER read?

is Brave New World one? All that soma!

 

I won't mention any that have been mentioned, but here are some others:

FIRE! reports from the underground press.
By Paul, jon, and Charlotte (This is a collection of writings, drawings, cartoons, and pictures from underground newspapers. I imagine it will be hard to find---i got mine in an underground bookstore in the 70's.)

Communism and the New Left, What They're Up to Now.
(I actually never read this--except for bits and pieces---obviously lots of propaganda----but I mention it cause I love the pictures---lots of brothers and sisters from all over, Hippies, Black Panthers, Yippies, Weathermen, SDS...)

Dr. Spock on Vietnam.
By Dr. Benjamin Spock (If you want to know the truth on Vietnam and why we were justified in standing up against it this is the book to read. This may not be specifically a hippie book, but it is a key part to the whole politico-social context that fueled the movement.)



Now if you want to get intellectually deeper into the whole scene---some can argue that the hippies were not political so this stuff shouldn't apply---but the fact is by being apolitical they were making a political statement that reflected these dynamics at play in the 60's:

One Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society.
By Herbert Marcuse. (This book pretty much shaped the Left and radicalism of the 60's and 70's. It holds a lot of good stuff for people today too.)

WIthout Marx or Jesus, The New American Revolution has Begun.
By Jean Francois-Revel (A Frenchman's take on the scene here. I originally read this in the 70's, and re-read it about 7 or 8 years ago. I think its important to go back to this one to see where we failed, what we need to pick on again, and so forth----especially with hard shift to the Right here in recent years...)

 

I will add Carl Jung's, 'Man in Search of a Soul'

Carl Jung was not a hippie, but he was pretty hip. This book was written in the 50's in response to the State slavery behind the Iron Curtain. It speaks out against the rationalist objectivism of science and government---and speaks to the value of the individual and subjectivism.

This was a popular book and most certainly helped shape the ideologies of the 60's.

 

i bet A Wrinkle In Time was my fav book

 

I second the Robert Heinlein recommendation.

Best “hippie” book that came to mind is Rule of the Bone by Russell banks

 

The BEST would be: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Especially if you understand what "dragon sickness" is - and why Bilbo himself was a victim of it at the start of the book.

A few honorable mentions that have not yet been mentioned (lots of good books above!) would include:

The Glass Teat by Harlan Ellison
Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
The Hypnotism Handbook by A.E. Van Vogt
The Folksinger's Guitar Guide by Jerry Silverman
Chez Panisse Cooking by Alice Waters
Yardening by Jeff Ball
The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Amy Dacyczyn
101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution by Claire Wolfe
The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving by John Hoffman
Where There is No Doctor by David Werner
Pranks! by V. Vale, etc.
Indian Crafts and Lore by W. Ben Hunt
Magic Eye Gallery
The Principia Discordia by Malaclypse the Younger
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
The Tracker by Tom Brown, Jr.

 

Did anyone mention The Point---it was a comic book that came in the Record album by the same name by Harry Nilsson. You could follow along in the comic book to the record. And remember, everything has a point, man!

Coincidentally, I think they are coming out with a new recording of this. I think the story was narrated by Dustin Hoffman, if I recall correctly, this time it is being narrated by Ringo Starr. I think they are making it into an animated short or something. Maybe its already released.

 

I’ll say it’s very interesting to see the mix of a lot of both fiction and nonfiction titles suggested in this thread.


I’m going with Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey

 

Jerry Rubin's Do It! Scenarios for the revolution

 

the fun part is that I have an ultra weird italian edition... i think it is pretty rare. Some hippie one day sold all his books to the shitshop and I am still searching for each last obscure counterculture book
. I'll post some

 

"DO IT ! A practical manual for daily alternative lifestyles" , some ideas are good but I want to show you the ridiculous ones.

 

Abbie Hoffman, "Steal this book!"
Yet no, I paid for this.