The beats are back in town

It’s official: a full-fledged beat renaissance is now underway. Archivist Bill Morgan is out with two new beatnik books, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters (a collection of correspondences) and The Typewriter Is Holy  (an overview of beat history). San Francisco Chronicle critic Steve Silberman found the latter mediocre, but lauds the former as a compelling window into the minds of two burgeoning literary geniuses and their unconventional friendship:

Morgan is a tireless archivist and editor but a distressingly dull writer. "Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters" is destined to become an indispensable item on any fan's bookshelf, but "The Typewriter Is Holy" is marred by the author's lifeless observations and reticence to engage the substance of Beat writing itself. By choosing to focus instead on the bad habits and globe-trotting itineraries of the writers he loves, Morgan inadvertently trivializes them, turning them into the stars of a bohemian reality show punctuated by bland voice-overs about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" . . .