In 2000, literary historian Thomas Newhouse published The Beat Generation and the Popular Novel in the United States, 1945-1970. Newhouse provides history and criticism on popular American novels in chapters covering "The War at Home: The Novel of Juvenile Delinquency," "Hipsters, Beats, and Supermen," "Breaking the Last Taboo: The Gay Novel," and "Which Way Is Up? The Drug Novel."

Thomas Owens provides a thorough look at the innovative and controversial style of jazz that came alive in the 1940s and 1950s in Bebop: The Music and Its Players (1995). Focusing on the roots of bebop and moving into a study of its major players, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Owens presents a readable, yet studious, account of the music and the techniques of the musicians. Serious jazz lovers will enjoy this work.

In Michael Leja's 1993 book Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and...