Genesis Angels

While vividly evoking Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and William Burroughs, this celebrated Beat Generation biography focuses on Lew Welch, the poet who lived the American Dream as an advertising man (shades of Mad Men) before dropping out. "My pick for the best written literary bio of anybody, ever," writes Richard Meltzer in The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats. Includes classic photographs.