Curation #20 from my Kerouac bookshelf: Good Blonde & Others by Jack Kerouac

Item #20 in my Kerouac bookshelf creation project is the book, Good Blonde & Others by Jack Kerouac. It was published by Grey Fox Press in San Francisco. Copyright pages are notoriously unhelpful in identifying the year a particular edition of a book came out. This book's copyright page says, "Revised and enlarged edition, second printing, 1998." I think I bought this copy used, either from Twice Sold Tales in Farmington, Maine (a great little used bookstore) or on Amazon.

This edition features a preface by Robert Creeley, and then 29 short pieces categorized as On the Road, On the Beats, On Writing, Observations, On Sports, Last Words, and cityCityCITY (Jack's attempt at sci fi). It ends with an Editor's Note providing information on where each piece initially appeared in print. Some of the pieces are essential Kerouac: for example, two from Playboy such as "Good Blonde" (January 1965) and "Origins of the Beat Generation (June 1959). I own the latter two issues of Playboy and so will be curating them late in this project (they are on the bottom shelf). Other pieces initially appeared in magazines such as Escapade, Evergreen Review, Esquire, The Atlantic,  and so on.

Like I said, it's essential Kerouac so here's a link on Amazon in case you want to buy it.




Below is a picture of Shelf #1 of my Kerouac bookshelf showing the placement of this book (1st item on the left) on the day I started curating my collection. Next up: Atop an Underwood by Jack Kerouac.

Shelf #1 of my Kerouac bookshelf