Top five books that capture the spirit of the 1960s

Pamela Des Barres, circa 1968

John Lennon was once famously quoted as saying: “If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliché that must have been left behind in the ‘60s, that's a problem. Peace and love are eternal.” Lennon, like many other great musicians that emerged from the same era, was a significant force in cementing the legacy of what the youth of America stood for, a voice for all of those whose voices advocated for harmony on earth. It is nearly impossible to try to concisely sum up a decade that altered the trajectory of the country forever. With all things considered, the two words “peace” and “love” both seem to perfectly epitomize the ethos of the era.

Below are five books that capture the magical essence of the decade, each written by authors who lived a life that truly deserves to be recognized. From essays that delve into the gritty crevasses of a rain-deprived Los Angeles to autobiographical sketches of the painfully romantic milieu that lay within the evolving music scene. Each work reads as a window into a time that blossomed with ambition and hope — vivid portraits of youthful chaos that, on the whole, capture a society reaching for a better world.

Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz

“I did not become famous but I got near enough to smell the stench of success. It smelt like burnt cloth and rancid gardenias, and I realized that the truly awful thing about success is that it's held up all those years as the thing that would make everything all right.”

Summary: Devoted to portraying Los Angeles, Eve Babitz offers a vivid snapshot of the city — her city. Where the jacaranda thrives and stands as a welcome home sign. The book picks up in the 1960s and continues through the 1970s, touching on the beauty and underbelly of Hollywood’s final golden age. Stylized in the form of a love story addressed to an unnamed male companion, the book follows Babitz from one attachment to another through various bygone Los Angeles establishments. Seeped in voyeurism, Babitz delivers her string of faltering love affairs and blossoming friendships with Hollywood actors and eccentric socialites with an observant frankness and adoration. She documents the Southern California of yesteryear with infectious energy. Her perception of the city is cruel but sweet in the places where she knows where to find it. Having designed album covers for Atlantic Records in the sixties, including those of which for Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, a naturally artistic view of the world is deeply woven into Babitz’s words — the pages her canvas and descriptors her medium.

Why I Love It: Babitz is a master raconteur, recalling the minute, often overlooked details of any given situation. Slow Days, Fast Company reads more as narrative non-fiction given the life that the Los Angeles native has led. Trapezing throughout the streets of the city alongside handsome men and embracing all of the unexpectedness that life offered. She thanks Didion for being what she will never be and writes with such unabashed, decadent, and painstakingly beautiful observations that it feels as though you’re right there beside her at Dodger Stadium, in the cruel heat of Bakersfield, or feeling the whoosh of the hot Santa Ana winds. Matthew Specktor compares her work to Renoir's, stating that “it’s her ferocious aphoristic intelligence that steals the show.” It’s that same painterly sense which flows through her work that renders Slow Days, Fast Company as the ultimate love letter to L.A. She ends her story on the rumination of death and the unimportance of material, worldly possessions —a reflection on the notion that nothing is everlasting and everything is impermanent. Hollywood structures from the century’s heyday, orange sunsets, beauty, youth, love, friendships — none of it remained the same forever, alluding to the fact that in a constantly evolving world, the only constant is the blossoming jacaranda.

Meow! My Groovy Life with Tiger Beat’s Teen Idols by Ann Moses

“I hadn’t been to a ‘love-in’ before, but at the [Monterey Pop] Festival, it seemed like we were all a family, tied together by music and mutual respect. I must have had some kind of contact high, because the entire time, I felt like I was in a dream world — the most perfect place at the perfect time.”

Summary: Dwelling in Hollywood among the teen stars of the time and interviewing them for a living — what could be more exciting? The editor and lead contributor of Tiger Beat during its heyday, Ann Moses is without a doubt a natural storyteller at heart. She writes thoroughly about her experience working for the magazine, befriending certain superstars along the way, and falling in and out of love. Ann, a native Californian, began writing about music in 1965, and from 1972 her job at Tiger Beat made her the youngest editor in chief of a national magazine in the country. In the sixties and early seventies, Ann wrote about the most beloved fave raves and heartthrobs in the magazines, but in her autobiography, she sincerely tells her own side of the story.

Why I Love It: From the very beginning, I became enthralled in Ann’s life and aspiring steps toward falling into her job at Tiger Beat. Through her descriptions and vivid reflections, I was instantly transported to the lively Hollywood scene of the late 1960s. Ann was there for it all during Hollywood’s last golden age, in the throes of a dreamland that young girls across the nation could often only fantasize about visiting. She worked to add fuel to teenybopper dreams through the written word to make readers believe they actually stood a chance of dating David Cassidy or marrying Davy Jones. In this way, Ann possessed a power so influential that she became a voice for those young fans. Through Tiger Beat, readers could live vicariously through Ann’s adventures in Hollywoodland for the price of a magazine. In much of the same way, Ann transported me back to the bygone era, and for an all-too-brief moment, I was alongside her in the swinging sixties, in the heady days of flowers, peace, and love. Her book is well worth the read — for all of the sunshiny joy, innocent love, and grooviness that it encapsulates.

I’m With The Band by Pamela Des Barres

“There I was, in what was to become my favorite position in the world, hanging on to the hand of an English rock star. He took me to the Hollywood Bowl the next night, where I reveled in being by his side. I was with the band.”

Summary: Chronicling her days spent growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s, Pamala Des Barres was, and continues to be, regarded as one of the most famous groupies in the rock music scene. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela fled to the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on backstage doors and plunged headfirst into the world of drugs, thrilling danger, and the freewheeling sixties. For her many years spent mingling with the legends of the era, she beautifully documents it all within 302 pages, inserting frequent excerpts from her journal of the time as well as her own collection of pictures that work to illustrate the sheer amount of giddy happiness, heartbreak, and an abundant lust for life.

Why I Love It: I bought I’m With The Band last summer, but never had a chance to read it until the beginning of this year. Within three days, I had finished reading it, eagerly lapping up every word and detail, wishing more than ever to be transported back to that time. In my journal, I reflected, “Her diction and sugary vocabulary is something that I admire greatly. Pamela writes of her sunset strip escapades as if life is a game of Candyland and she is the frosting queen, frolicking through the candied trail that was the Sunset Strip.” Her confessions render the book as a coming-of-age story, a starry-eyed girl experiencing life to the fullest amongst the likes of Led Zeppelin, Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, and the Rolling Stones. Additionally, her artistic relationship with Zappa would lead to the birth of the GTOs, one of the first all-girl groups of the time that performed experimental rock and embraced avant-garde. Above all else, Miss Pamela was determined to let the world know that she stood for love in every sense of the word.

The White Album by Joan Didion

*“This sense that the world can be reinvented [evokes] the Sixties in this country, those years when no one at all seemed to have any memory or mooring...”*

Summary: Published in 1979, The White Album documents the turbulent dissonance of the 1960s. Written from her own spiritually bemused point of view, Didion examines the big events, prominent figures, and trends of the era and corrals them into a collection of essays. From Charles Manson to Georgia O’Keeffe, Didion works to capture an evolving culture with a certitude and fastidiousness of tone which makes her work a central text that both portrays a snapshot of America and her own ruminations within the context of an admirable autobiography.

Why I Love It: I first read an excerpt of The White Album in an American Literature class and was instantly captivated. I knew I needed to read more from the prose writer who sat among the presence of the Doors, witnessed the San Francisco State College strikes, and conversed with Linda Kasabian. Didion writes with straightforward, honest, clean observations of the world around her in a way that feels clear-cut. She lays it out on the line, describing momentous events unfolding in American history as it were – no ruffles, frills, or flowery embellishments. In contrast to Eve Babitz, who leans into minuscule descriptions and the unrealism within the world of the famous, Didion simply writes in a matter-of-fact tone, interjecting vulnerable fragments of how her own lifestyle came into play in regards to the bigger picture. It’s this back and forth between the affairs of the real world and her inner world that make The White Album a timeless collection of essays.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

“Yet you could feel a vibration in the air, a sense of hastening. It had started with the moon, inaccessible poem that it was. Now men had walked upon it, rubber treads on a pearl of the gods. Perhaps it was an awareness of time passing, the last summer of the decade. Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up.”

Summary: The book’s official description reads, “It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.” When aspiring artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith cross paths, their lives are forever changed as they immerse themselves in the world of the arts, with the sole intent of making it their livelihood. Patti describes the various creative people they meet along the way, from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, and chronicles how their love for art and each other are the core sustenance for a fruitful, gratifying, and fulfilling existence.

Why I Love It: I completed this book for the first time last summer and intend on revisiting it again this summer. Patti Smith’s writing is obviously incredible as anyone who has read her words can confirm. The foremost aspect that is the most endearing about her and Robert’s relationship was their steadfast commitment to art and to one another. Patti and Robert constantly inspired and motivated one another and sacrificed themselves completely to their respective craft, which they were ultimately, and well-deservingly, repaid for in the end. Their love story is something so rare that it has no other explanation other than fate. To me, Just Kids is rooted in youthful optimism and hope – both Patti and Robert brought out each other’s inner child in a way that only true love can.