Soon to be a major motion picture starring Kate Bosworth, Josh Lucas, Anthony Edwards, and Radha Mitchell "Each book by Jack Kerouac is unique, a telepathic diamond. With prose set in the middle of his mind, he reveals consciousness itself in all its syntatic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion. Such rich natural writing is nonpareil in later half XX century, a synthesis of Proust, Céline, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, Genet, Thelonius Monk, Basho, Charlie Parker, and Kerouac's own athletic sacred insight. "Big Sur's humane, precise account of the extraordinary ravages of alcohol delirium tremens on Kerouac, a suerior novelist who had strength to complete his poetic narrative, a task few scribes so afflicted have accomplished—others crack up. Here we meet San Francisco's poets & recognize hero Dean Moriarty ten years after On the Road. Jack Kerouac was a 'writer,' as his great peer W.S. Burroughs says, and here at the peak of his suffering humorous genius he wrote through his misery to end with 'Sea,' a brilliant poem appended, on the hallucinatory Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur." —Allen Ginsberg

Big Sur is a river and a region on California's Central Coast. Extending for 75 miles along the Pacific shore, from south of Carmel to north of San Simeon, the Big Sur Coast is defined by the backdrop of the rugged Santa Lucia Mountains as they abruptly descend to meet the sea. For millennia the home of native people, Americans and Europeans began to settle Big Sur country even before California became a state. This book combines outstanding photographs from 40 collections, ranging from family albums to institutional archives.

In his great triptych "The Millennium," Bosch used oranges and other fruits to symbolize the delights of Paradise. In his great triptych “The Millennium,” Bosch used oranges and other fruits to symbolize the delights of Paradise. Whence Henry Miller’s title for this, one of his most appealing books; first published in 1957, it tells the story of Miller’s life on the Big Sur, a section of the California coast where he lived for fifteen years. Big Sur is the portrait of a place—one of the most colorful in the United States—and of the extraordinary people Miller knew there: writers (and writers who did not write), mystics seeking truth in meditation (and the not-so-saintly looking for sex-cults or celebrity), sophisticated children and adult innocents; geniuses, cranks and the unclassifiable, like Conrad Moricand, the “Devil in Paradise” who is one of Miller’s greatest character studies. Henry Miller writes with a buoyancy and brimming energy that are infectious. He has a fine touch for comedy. But this is also a serious book—the testament of a free spirit who has broken through the restraints and clichés of modern life to find within himself his own kind of paradise.

Between World War II and Vatican II, as Italy struggled to rebuild after decades of Mussolini’s fascism, an eleventh-century order of contemplative monks in the Apennines were urged by Thomas Merton to found a daughter house on the rugged coast of California. A brilliant but world-weary ex-Jesuit, who had recently withdrawn from a high-intensity public life to go into reclusion at the ancient Sacro Eremo of Camaldoli, was tapped for the job. Based on notes kept for over sixty years by an early American novice at New Camaldoli Hermitage, The Hermits of Big Sur tells the compelling story of what unfolds within this small and idealistic community when medievalism must finally come to terms with modernism. It traces the call toward fuga mundi in the young seekers who arrive to try their vocations, only to discover that the monastic life requires much more of them than a bare desire for solitude. And it describes the miraculous transformation that sometimes occurs in individual monks after decades of lectio divina, silent meditation, liturgical faithfulness, and the communal bonds they have formed through the practice of the “privilege of love.”

This is the most detailed guide to hiking and backpacking in Big Sur. Explore the endless hiking and backpacking possibilities in 75 trips (plus numerous side trips) on the rugged coastline and isolated backcountry trails of Big Sur, Ventana Wilderness, and Silver Peak Wilderness. Stretching 90 miles from Carmel to San Simeon, Big Sur consists of coastal cliffs, jagged rocky promontories, ancient redwood forests, and lush riparian woodlands. This invaluable resource gives the latest information on the trails, roads, camps, and beaches in Big Sur, plus all of the area's state parks and wilderness areas.

California's Big Sur has it all: majestic redwoods and waterfalls, a rich literary and cultural tradition, and the legendary Big Sur Inn. This illustrated tour travels back in time to reveal the history, legends and storied past of a coastline institution. What started with a dream of Norwegian Helmuth Deetjen became a refuge for artists, travellers and celebrities worldwide, including Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.

Cameron's latest miracle--in paper and thus, an even more extreme bargain than other Above... titles. Includes his photos, one by NASA, and several historic shots selected by the photographer. Excellent color exposures of a very lovely coast. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR