There was some discussion about learning more about the sixties. Unlike other decades, there never has really been a nostalgia wave for the sixties. One could argue that boomers have been nostalgic for the sixties since about 1971, and their nostalgia has never waned.
Here are a few fun reading ideas.
1968: The Year That Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky
Annette suggested this title by Mark Kurlansky who has written excellent books about cod and salt (both of which I've read). 1968 wasn't just an terrible year in the United States; among other events there were uprisings in Paris and Mexico City, a Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, and major carnage in Vietnam.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Either you're on the bus, or you're off the bus. If you don't know what I'm referring to, you simply have to read this book - which is probably more fun than actually hanging out with Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters. Also this is essential reading for Grateful Dead fans.
Four Books of the 1960s by Norman Mailer
There are plenty of journalistic and historical accounts of the events of the sixties, but none of them have the bombast of these contemporaneous books by Norman Mailer. To quote from jacket copy: "In a way uniquely his own, he merged the public and the private, the personal and the political, taking risks with every sentence". I'd start with Armies of the Night.
Bonus Reads: Both Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer wrote about the space program. Wolfe very famously in The Right Stuff, and Mailer more obscurely in Of a Fire on the Moon. Check out this recent Atlantic article about the Mailer book
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