RealityStudio.org

If you haven't visited the BURROUGHS BOOK COVER site lately, please do. There are now 46 Junky covers, 69 Naked Lunches...I am proud to say that 30 or so of my books have achieved stardom thereon, with more being added daily.

http://www.books.rack111.com/burroughs-books/index.html

Thanks for the reminder to keep that site on the radar. There are incredible covers there -- some that are so right, and too many that are so wrong.

The Kingdom of Norway and Sweden both latched onto the centipede theme in Naked Lunch. I find them to be satisfying covers!

as a soppy old sentimentalist (how unBurroughsian *lolz) my fave will always be the UK Flamingo 1993 NAKED LUNCH ... the version that was my first introduction to the book, and to the genius that is Burroughs...

but WHAT a website!!! so many brilliant illustrations. As RS says, some are so wrong... but entertainingly so!

I agree with Davee. My first copy of NL was the exact same one, and got one helluva lot of use. You never forget your first NL time...

Name a few that you find particularly wrong. The only two that I am troubled by are both my own, and both from 1992: Japanese with the star-child hair, and Hungarian with the semen-soaked orgas-ma-trons...both seem to miss the boat, or misrepresent the boat, at least. Or not really mention the boat. I love the 1972 Netherlands cover. I can't rest until I track that one down.
And this is not to say that I don't love the Japanese and Hungarian ones, too. I love all Naked Lunches, everywhere, world-wide...I have a copy of the second Olympia that I bought from a bookstore on Rue-Git-Le-Couer. It was issued without a dustjacket, so it's just the green cover, but it still thrills. And my Olympia First with the dust jacket is (and will always be) the reigning champion. Burroughs' reprised artwork on the new 50th Grove makes that one super nice, too.

Just looking at NL for now...

The Yugoslavia 1986 cover of NL seems wrong to me. It's too hetero and makes the book look like soft erotica. I don't like the Italy 1995 one with the still from Cronenberg's film -- unlike many, I like the film, but that "Benway!" moment is one of the worst gags in it. Also I've never been able to reconcile translating the title as "Il Pasto Nudo." I don't have a better suggestion, but to my American ear "pasto nudo" sounds like too foody.

My own first NL cover was US Grove 1990. In the abstract, I hate that cover, but I love it because it was my first edition of the book. I'll cherish it forever. But it's ugly and very dated.

There are some fantastic NL covers: Denmark 1967 (would be great to couple that with McLuhan's essay on Burroughs); Calder 1964; Flamingo 2001; Germany 1962; Norway 2004; Russia 1993. And you can't go wrong putting a painting by Francis Bacon on the cover of NL.

Does anyone know how to send a scan to the Burroughs book cover site?

Since this morning I have problems reaching the site...