Underground Overground: 10 Essential Books on or From the Counterculture

I've never been entirely certain of what the parameters of "the counterculture" are: while in 1950s and 1960s America, the Beat Generation, and then the hippies were "the counterculture." Nowadays I'd be forced to give a fairly broad definition, one which encompassed anything that can't be considered mainstream, ranging from goth and emo and nu-metal in music, to any book that has an experimental edge or isn't likely to be found in your high-street chain bookstore or supermarket.

Similarly, I'm never sure that compiling lists of things really qualifies as journalism. Nevertheless, people seem to enjoy reading list-focused articles, and to appreciate recommendations. So combining the mainstream fashion in journalism right now with something of great personal interest, here is a list of essential books connected to "the counterculture," both past and present.

Because it's all about art, it's entirely subjective, and I make no apology for this.

• William S. Burroughs: Naked Lunch

  While Kerouac may have captured the zeitgeist and the spirit of the nomad in books like "On the Road," and Ginsberg may have been the voice of the hippie generation, Burroughs' 1959 book was like else nothing before it. Moreover, there's not been anything quite like it since, and of all the work produced by the Beats, this one is the most radical, and also the one which has best stood the test of time.

• Stewart Home: Slow Death

  London author Stewart Home has stirred up some controversy in the 25 years since he first appeared on the art scene. "Slow Death" (1996) is wholly typical of his earlier work, melding pastiche pulp-style writing with highbrow cultural commentary to a sparse plot about skinhead gangs, artists and anarchists rioting through London. Its simplicity belies its theoretical complexity: it's intentionally trashy and shocking, and also extremely funny.

• Irvine Welsh: Trainspotting

  Before the definitive film of the nineties made a global celebrity of Ewan MacGregor, Welsh's book was already bridging the gap between the underground and the mainstream. Unlike many books that receive this much hype, this one actually merits it, with a gritty mosaic of a narrative that digs deep into the dark underbelly of the international city of culture that is Edinburgh.

• Robert J. Glessing: The Underground Press in America

  The real counterculture happens underground, and before any critics and commentators become aware of a writer, artist or movement, you can guarantee that the underground press has been simmering, hype-free, for some time. This book gives an invaluable history of the magazines that really mattered and where it was really at all along.

• Charles Neal: Tape Delay

  A veritable who's who of the New York no-wave scene and beyond, this volume features interviews, photos and original texts from artists including Swans, Einsturzende Neubauten, Foetus, The Fall, Sonic Youth, Lydia Lunch, Psychic TV and more.

• Kathy Acker: Blood and Guts in High Scool

  Acker was practically a counterculture in her own right. The tattood punk plagiarist eschewed literary convention and never bowed to commercial ideals. This, her 1978 anti-novel doesn't subscribe to things as mainstream as linear narrative or a readily discernible plot, and instead combines fragments of text and a series of narrators interspersed with maps and line-drawings to create a scrap-book novel that really does achieve something beyond the ordinary.

• Richard Allen: Skinhead

  The title says it all really. 70s pulp youthsploitation at its best / worst, depending on your politic.

• Peter Sotos: Proxy

  Sotos' work represents a whole other level of counterculture. As controversial a writer as you're likely to encounter, his reputation for extremity and a disregard for taboo is entirely founded, and comparisons to the Marquis de Sade aren't far off the mark. But what the majority of critics fail to acknowledge is the fact that he is a remarkable writer, and while much of de Sade's writing is tedious, the same cannot be said of Peter Sotos, and this anthology brings together almost an entire career's worth of devastatingly brutal writing.

• Henry Miller: Tropic of Capricorn

  Miller lived apart - not so much a countercultural figure, but a man independent of any particular culture - and his grand narratives are those of a man who not only lived life to the full, but also observed more keenly and acutely than most writers could ever dream was possibloe. What's more, he captures it all eloquently and earthily, both at the same time. Truly essential.

• Dani Cavallaro: Cyberpunk and Cyberculture

  With the explosion of new technologies, it's not surprising that society and the cultures within it has changed radically. While previous countercultures have required some kind of physical network to maintain themselves and to develop, the postmodern world, with its superabndance of fast-flowing information, has seen the counterculture become an increasingly fragmented and increasingly specialist spectrum of countercultures. In "Cyberpunk and Cybcerculture," Cavallaro provides an informative yet accessible account of the modern-day underground that splices sci-fi and punk and a lot more besides.