RealityStudio.org

Some of this may have been covered across the spectre of this delightful board, but me thinks it fanciful, to perhaps make a more comprehensive list, and perhaps more enjoyable, to collect a rendering of the various works on or about Burroughs.

To borrow the language of Huncke: Sometimes I can sit after having taken a shot of heroin for several hours completely absorbed by Amazon-search results giving me brief and titillating titles and dear prizes of works pertaining the author and man Burroughs.

Now, some of them are well-known and even impossible not to have come across having read and bathed in the milieu of Beatitude(sic) and Burroughs, like the biographies by Miles or Morgan. But some works in a google search, or a RS-search, give only titles or vague descriptions pertaining to what one might be to expect were one to buy one of these mysterious bound words.

In particular I'm thinking of titles such as:

Wising Up the Marks: The Amodern William Burroughs

William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination

Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization

The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas

Word Cultures: Radical Theory and Practice in William S. Burroughs' Fiction

William S. Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959 - 1989

My Kind of Angel: I. M . William Burroughs (Stride Conversation Piece) by Rupert Loydell and William Burroughs (slightly unsure wether this actually is a William Sewards Burroughs II publication or a namesake, but you lovely fellows will soon straigthen this up)

S. Clay Wilson Selected Works. an Appreciation By William S. Burroughs. Foreword By Brad Balfour

Man from Nowhere: Storming the Citadels of Enlightenment With William Burroughs and Brion Gysin

and

Tornado Alley (1989). A seperate publication (book) by Burroughs I have yet to ever come across.

So, I am sure that several of these works listed are not only discussed, but some may even have separate articles (mind you) on this deliriously delightful website, but what I desire, that is to say the very essence that gave birth to this post or thread, is a more human and personal experiences with these delightfully, often obsucre, titles.

Let the gathering of emotional and sublime knowledge commence!

There is an entry for Tornado Alley in Eric Shoaf's bibliography:

http://realitystudio.org/bibliography/b ... ado-alley/

William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination is the best standalone work of criticism about Burroughs. It was written by Oliver Harris and takes the subject of fascination as the springboard for a discussion of Junkie, Queer, and Naked Lunch. Professor Harris features in many articles here on RealityStudio:

http://realitystudio.org/tag/oliver-harris/

The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas is Rob Johnson's fascinating book documenting Burroughs' years in South Texas. It contains interviews with people who knew Burroughs when he was a nobody junkie and sheds some new light on the death of his wife Joan Vollmer. It's a fascinating read. Professor Johnson was interviewed here on the site:

http://realitystudio.org/interviews/rob-johnson/

My Kind of Angel is a book I've seen around but it always looked too insignificant to consider buying. I have nothing to say about it myself.

So long as you're talking about books about Burroughs, I'd strongly recommend adding Michael Stevens' Road to Interzone and Barry Miles' book on the Beat Hotel to your list.

I've always desired a book that goes in depth into Burroughs fascinationd, but also Burroughs link to them.

Road to Interzone has interested me, but read so many bad reviews, claiming it no more than a list of works read...

Road to Interzone? Bad reviews? Impossible. It is basically an annotated list of works read by Burroughs -- but it's absolutely fascinating. I love the book and consider it to be an essential reference alongside Literary Outlaw and a few other things.

Expencive though

Worth every penny.

I'm currently saving up money to buy a used copy of "The Secret Fascination" on amazon. So first things first.

But what about the Drug User Documents? Is the "Just say no" essay the only thing by Burroughs in it?

I would recommend Word Cultures: Radical Theory and Practice in William S. Burroughs' Fiction for help in making sense of the cut-up trilogy. I found it invaluable.

RS is right on two counts: Road to Interzone is ESSENTIAL if you're looking to understand what helped Burroughs create what he created. It also might give you a little 'suggested reading'...
and MY KIND OF ANGEL is required only for Burroughs completists...lots of indulgent tribute but it DOES feature a number of interviews with WSB and a previously unpublished introduction by Burroughs for C. J. Bradbury Robinson's aborted Olympia Press edition of WILLIAMS MIX, written in London in 1971

BigCrux,

You'll get a kick out of this.

http://www.betweenthecovers.com/btc/item/279213/

I think the date is wrong maybe more like late 1960 to early 1970s??.

Four and a half thousand bucks!?! For that?!? You could almost write a routine about the Burroughs completetist who can't sleep at night until he begs, borrows and steels enough to purchase it! And then when he finally gets home and reads the thing it's complete shite! (The Burroughs completetist doesn't care about that though!)

Hell, I should really dash off a little Burroughs pamphlet myself, print a few odd copies and leave them lying about where coffee will easily spill on them and then try my luck on Ebay with 'em if I'm cash strapped in the future!

Just got my edition of "Literary Outlaw." A worn out hard cover. Annoying since I can't carry it around.

However, the first pages were surprisingly slow.

Hang in there. It gets going.

I read it about ten years ago carefully and with great youthful fascination over 3 or or 4 days during which time I did little else but read the thing, and weirdly enough, a day or two after I finished it I opened a newspaper to read that Burroughs had just died...

Ports of Entry is also essential in my opinion. It has to be one of the top 2 or 3 books about Burroughs.

Mr. Lightfoot,

That Williams Mix is rather much, but I have to say if you published a pamphlet I would buy one, minus the coffeestain.