Also of interest...in bands of rebels

Smoking Typewriters

by John McMillian

(Oxford, $28)

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John McMillian’s “thrilling historical narrative” traces the rise of the “freewheeling citizen journalism” that sprang up in the 1960s underground press, said Anis Shivani in The Austin American-Statesman. McMillian does a fine job explaining the underappreciated role underground newspapers played in bringing together the New Left, and also how they morphed into more “commercialized” alternative weeklies. The story is as relevant to today as last month’s sale of HuffingtonPost.com.

The Gospel of Anarchy

by Justin Taylor

(Harper, $14)

Justin Taylor’s debut novel is the literary equivalent of “tossing a Molotov cocktail at a Starbucks,” said Ariel Gonzalez in The Miami Herald. Set in Gainesville, Fla., it follows a “disparate group of garbage-scrounging drifters” who reside in an anarchist commune they call Fishgut. “The novel reads more like a series of character sketches than a plot-driven work of fiction,” but Taylor is an “irrefutably talented writer.” He provides “enough narrative goodies” here “to sustain a reader to the end.”

A Nation of Outsiders

by Grace Elizabeth Hale

(Oxford, $30)

This “smart new study” of post-1950s American rebelliousness puts the politics of the Left in a whole new light, said Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect. Grace Elizabeth Hale’s theories fall apart when she tries to show how conservative figures such as William F. Buckley Jr. also tried to cast themselves as standing outside the conventional white middle class. But her insights into how and why young liberals did so are invaluable in understanding the path their generation took.

Fanzines

by Teal Triggs

(Chronicle, $40)

Before there were blogs, fanzines were a “critical outlet” for rants about politics, music, fashion, and the banalities of the mainstream, said Steven Heller in The New York Times. These do-it-yourself publications peaked in influence when a punk aesthetic ruled, but they could be “extremely diverse and intensely personal.” Design historian Teal Triggs has fashioned a handsomely crafted “fanzine to fanzines” that is both an impressive visual document and a “scholarly record” of a fascinating print subculture.