Here are 84 books that Prime Green fans have personally recommended if you like Prime Green. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

John Walters Author Of The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen

From my list on celebrating the psychedelic sixties.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became a young man near the end of the sixties, and I have always been enthralled by the era's various idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. For instance, I loved the complex yet pleasant rock music and the freewheeling lifestyle. On the downside, the war in Vietnam cast its pall over the times, and I narrowly escaped being drafted and sent off to Southeast Asia. Overall, it was an era in which good and evil were starkly defined, and many people were attempting to create a better, more peaceful world. There is still much we can learn from this time.

John's book list on celebrating the psychedelic sixties

John Walters Why John loves this book

I love this book because it sweeps me into the wild, wonderful, free spirit of the 1960s.

Although it is ostensibly nonfiction, Wolfe uses a singular hip, frantic voice to propel readers into the weird world of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters as they cavort with the Grateful Dead at the infamous, hedonic LSD-laced Acid Tests, journey around the country in the psychedelically-painted bus nicknamed Further, and eventually head for Mexico to avoid arrest.

I've read this book multiple times, and on each occasion, it's like time-traveling to one of my favorite eras.

By Tom Wolfe ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

I looked around and people's faces were distorted...lights were flashing everywhere...the screen at the end of the room had three or four different films on it at once, and the strobe light was flashing faster than it had been...the band was playing but I couldn't hear the music...people were dancing...someone came up to me and I shut my eyes and with a machine he projected images on the back of my eye-lids...I sought out a person I trusted and he laughed and told me that the Kool-Aid had been spiked and that I was beginning my first LSD experience...


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Stranger in a Strange Land

John Walters Author Of The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen

From my list on celebrating the psychedelic sixties.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became a young man near the end of the sixties, and I have always been enthralled by the era's various idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. For instance, I loved the complex yet pleasant rock music and the freewheeling lifestyle. On the downside, the war in Vietnam cast its pall over the times, and I narrowly escaped being drafted and sent off to Southeast Asia. Overall, it was an era in which good and evil were starkly defined, and many people were attempting to create a better, more peaceful world. There is still much we can learn from this time.

John's book list on celebrating the psychedelic sixties

John Walters Why John loves this book

Although this book is ostensibly set in the future, countercultural enthusiasts of the sixties were quick to claim it for their own, with its references to transcendental enlightenment, out-of-body experiences, communal living, and free sex.

It became a best-selling phenomenon as contemporary young people reacted positively to its iconoclastic attitudes. That's what happened to me, too, when I came across the book shortly before the move to the Bay Area that opened my eyes to the reality of the psychedelic sixties.

By Robert A. Heinlein ,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Stranger in a Strange Land as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The original uncut edition of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein - one of the most beloved, celebrated science-fiction novels of all time. Epic, ambitious and entertaining, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND caused controversy and uproar when it was first published and is still topical and challenging today.

Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived...

Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a…


Book cover of Outside Looking In

John Walters Author Of The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen

From my list on celebrating the psychedelic sixties.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became a young man near the end of the sixties, and I have always been enthralled by the era's various idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. For instance, I loved the complex yet pleasant rock music and the freewheeling lifestyle. On the downside, the war in Vietnam cast its pall over the times, and I narrowly escaped being drafted and sent off to Southeast Asia. Overall, it was an era in which good and evil were starkly defined, and many people were attempting to create a better, more peaceful world. There is still much we can learn from this time.

John's book list on celebrating the psychedelic sixties

John Walters Why John loves this book

I find this novel intensely absorbing as it focuses on Timothy Leary's experiments with psychedelics and communal living in the early sixties.

After a prelude depicting the discovery of LSD's properties and power by a Swiss scientist in 1942, the viewpoint switches to a graduate psychology student and his wife as they are drawn into Leary's inner circle through the initial Harvard-approved weekend psilocybin and LSD parties, the summer-long bacchanalian revelries of drugs and sex in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and the communal social experiment in Millbrook, New York.

I can appreciate how Leary is presented as a charismatic, somewhat deluded guru of a drug cult and how his followers are enthralled, enraptured, and yet ultimately dissatisfied with a lifestyle based on the mind-expanding power of psychedelics.

By T.C. Boyle ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Outside Looking In as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One family's adventures in LSD: the brilliantly strange new novel from the mind of 'one of the most inventive, adventurous and accomplished fiction writers in the US today' (Lionel Shriver) Chosen as a Book of the Year 2019 by the Herald It is Harvard in the early 1960s. Just off campus, Dr Timothy Leary plays host for his PhD students, laying on a spread of cocktails, pizza and LSD. Among the guests is Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology student, and his librarian wife Joanie. Married young, and both diligently and unglamorously toiling to support their son, they are not the sort…


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead

Thomas A. Coogan Author Of Deadheads and Christians

From my list on the Grateful Dead and their fans.

Why am I passionate about this?

I describe myself as equal parts Deadhead and student of the Bible. I have been active in a Presbyterian church for twenty years, which, being adjacent to a seminary, takes a very thorough approach to Bible study. We were deep into the Book of Acts during the Fare Thee Well events (2015), where I was re-acquainted with the intensity of the Deadheads’ devotion and their unfailingly positive spirit. My good wife, new to the scene, commented on how nice everyone was, that no one present was a stranger to any other. It occurred to me that these would all make good church members if only someone would reach out.

Thomas' book list on the Grateful Dead and their fans

Thomas A. Coogan Why Thomas loves this book

I think this is the most thorough history of the band, which is likely the result of it being written by a trained historian.

McNally had a very privileged access by travelling with the band for many years as their principal press contact. One chapter after another is chockfull of invaluable insights into the behind-the-scenes workings of the band, both in its artistic development and business decisions.

I listen to some of their songs differently now after learning more about the context that produced them.

By Dennis McNally ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Long Strange Trip as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The complete history of one of the most long-lived and legendary bands in rock history, written by its official historian and publicist—a must-have chronicle for all Dead Heads, and for students of rock and the 1960s’ counterculture.

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan exploded out of the artistic ferment of the early sixties’ roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels…


Book cover of Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960's and 70's

Chris Elcock Author Of Psychedelic New York: A History of LSD in the City

From my list on history of the American counter-culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the American counter-culture and its promise to change society, be it with radical lifestyles, drugs, or creating new cultural settings. I was going to study this from a more sociological approach until I discovered the history of the psychedelic movement and its promise to create a new society by reforming American individuals from within. Although I wound up becoming more interested in what the counter-culture actually achieved rather than dwelling on its excesses, I am currently working on a new book project that will shed light on an organization that managed to achieve both.

Chris' book list on history of the American counter-culture

Chris Elcock Why Chris loves this book

This is a collection I have constantly gone back to over the years and is probably my all-time favorite in the history of the counter-culture. I love the blend of rigorous research and easy reading, as well as the breadth of topics and diversity of approaches.

It is replete with thoughtful analyses and eloquent descriptions of the counter-culture, without ever giving in to the nostalgia of era or condemning it for that has gone wrong since. A great starting point if you want a good overview of the history of the American counter-culture.

By Peter Braunstein (editor) , Michael William Doyle (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Imagine Nation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Amidst the recent flourishing of Sixties scholarship, Imagine Nation is the first collection to focus solely on the counterculture. Its fourteen provocative essays seek to unearth the complexity and rediscover the society-changing power of significant movements and figures.


Book cover of Daughters of Aquarius: Women of the Sixties Counterculture

Chris Elcock Author Of Psychedelic New York: A History of LSD in the City

From my list on history of the American counter-culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the American counter-culture and its promise to change society, be it with radical lifestyles, drugs, or creating new cultural settings. I was going to study this from a more sociological approach until I discovered the history of the psychedelic movement and its promise to create a new society by reforming American individuals from within. Although I wound up becoming more interested in what the counter-culture actually achieved rather than dwelling on its excesses, I am currently working on a new book project that will shed light on an organization that managed to achieve both.

Chris' book list on history of the American counter-culture

Chris Elcock Why Chris loves this book

I found this book extremely important because it finally put to bed the myth that counter-cultural women were merely subservient to their male counterparts, while these women did so much to actually shape the counter-culture.

I recommend reading this alongside Nina Graboi’s criminally neglected autobiography–One Foot in the Future–that serves as a perfect illustration of American women successfully looking for empowerment in these counter-cultural enclaves.

By Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Daughters of Aquarius as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It was a sign of the sixties. Drawn by the promise of spiritual and creative freedom, thousands of women from white middle-class homes rejected the suburban domesticity of their mothers to adopt lifestyles more like those of their great-grandmothers. They eagerly learned 'new' skills, from composting to quilting, as they took up the decade's quest for self-realization. 'Hippie women' have alternately been seen as earth mothers or love goddesses, virgins or vamps - images that have obscured the real complexity of their lives. Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo now takes readers back to Haight Ashbury and country communes to reveal how they experienced…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America

Chris Elcock Author Of Psychedelic New York: A History of LSD in the City

From my list on history of the American counter-culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the American counter-culture and its promise to change society, be it with radical lifestyles, drugs, or creating new cultural settings. I was going to study this from a more sociological approach until I discovered the history of the psychedelic movement and its promise to create a new society by reforming American individuals from within. Although I wound up becoming more interested in what the counter-culture actually achieved rather than dwelling on its excesses, I am currently working on a new book project that will shed light on an organization that managed to achieve both.

Chris' book list on history of the American counter-culture

Chris Elcock Why Chris loves this book

I love this book if only for McMillan’s hilarious chapter on the “Great Banana Hoax,” describing how the underground press convinced so many drug users to indulge in dried banana peel smoking to achieve what turned out to be a placebo high.

Much like Joshua Clark Davies’ From Head Shops to Whole Foods, this book is great at reminding us that the counter-culture was not just about self-indulgence but also about implementing new ways of living with tangible results. The underground press of the 1960s is a perfect example of stoners and radicals pooling their energy to disseminate information around the country through interstate networks.

By John McMillian ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Smoking Typewriters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How did the New Left uprising of the 1960s happen? What caused millions of young people--many of them affluent and college educated--to suddenly decide that American society needed to be completely overhauled?
In Smoking Typewriters, historian John McMillian shows that one answer to these questions can be found in the emergence of a dynamic underground press in the 1960s. Following the lead of papers like the Los Angeles Free Press, the East Village Other, and the Berkeley Barb, young people across the country launched hundreds of mimeographed pamphlets and flyers, small press magazines, and underground newspapers. New and cheap printing…


Book cover of The Girls

Martin Nathan Author Of A Place of Safety

From my list on people in dangerous systems of belief.

Why am I passionate about this?

My family was divided by religion, leaving me skeptical about belief systems. After a background in science, I studied philosophy and became intrigued by Heidegger's ‘pitiless atheism.’ The power of his thought but his personal failings have long been an issue for academics. I have since been fascinated partly by powerful personalities but more by the struggle of their followers as they suspend critical thinking and make huge sacrifices to offer their support. This struggle and difficulty of turning back, particularly as the systems begin to collapse, are a feature of many of the works of fiction that intrigue me most, particularly in the books I have chosen.

Martin's book list on people in dangerous systems of belief

Martin Nathan Why Martin loves this book

I liked the subtlety of the storytelling here and the way the whole tragic plot develops. Events develop as much out of boredom and lack of engagement rather than from evil intent.

The false messiah here doesn’t offer a great path and is not particularly charismatic. He just offers something slightly more interesting than all the others around. The outcome depends on accident more than any evil intention. Emma Cline finds an engaging way to explore a piece of history without exploitation.

By Emma Cline ,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Girls as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A gripping and dark fictionalised account of life inside the Manson family from one of the most exciting young voices in fiction.

If you're lost, they'll find you...

Evie Boyd is fourteen and desperate to be noticed.

It's the summer of 1969 and restless, empty days stretch ahead of her. Until she sees them. The girls. Hair long and uncombed, jewelry catching the sun. And at their centre, Suzanne, black-haired and beautiful.

If not for Suzanne, she might not have gone. But, intoxicated by her and the life she promises, Evie follows the girls back to the decaying ranch where…


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Inherent Vice

Travis Jeppesen Author Of Settlers Landing

From my list on when you need a heavy dose of satire.

Why am I passionate about this?

Given the state of the world today, laughter truly is the best coping mechanism. The best satire is all about excess in design, intention, characterization, and deployment of attitude. The more extreme, the better; leave restraint to the prudish moralists! 

Travis' book list on when you need a heavy dose of satire

Travis Jeppesen Why Travis loves this book

Really hard to pick just one Pynchon for this list, as he is an all-around master of satire. But Inherent Vice is probably his LOL funniest, a stoner take on the detective genre set in the hippie world of 1970s southern California. The cinematic adaptation by Paul Thomas Anderson ain’t half bad, either. 

By Thomas Pynchon ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Inherent Vice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon-Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era

In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.

It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail…


Book cover of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Book cover of Stranger in a Strange Land
Book cover of Outside Looking In

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Interested in the 1960s, the 1960s counterculture, and New York City?

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