The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah

In 1963 the paperback revolution was making good literature widely available for the first time, yet only a handful of stores took the trend seriously enough to devote themselves to the cause. Rambam, a closet-sized shop on a corner of Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue, was one.

The owners had a falling out, as partners often do, but the results were glorious instead of tragic, with ripples that birthed much of the culture we take for granted now. Underground comics, New Age publishing, used record stores, and poster art all came from Rambam's big bang, as each new business with visionary (but ornery) partners formed and then split again.

The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah is the social history of one of America's most legendary streets, and a family tree of the movements it fostered: the paperback revolution, the graphic novel, Slow Food, New Age, the Free Speech Movement—and even the Symbionese Liberation Army.