William S Burroughs Book Recommendations – Books off the Beaten Path

You're going to love William S Burroughs book recommendations.

Do you love reading books off the beaten path? Me too! Those kinds of books make me feel like an insider. Like I know things that others don't. And many of the books are really good books. They haven't been hyped up by the media like the flavor of the month books. That's why you haven't heard of them. And many were written decades ago. Witch-Doctor's Apprentice

While working on a non-degree liberal arts education, I stumbled on William S Burroughs' Creative Reading class. The class was loaded with many books off the beaten path. I was so excited to see William S Burroughs book recommendations.

I read the Witch-Doctor's Apprentice, and it's fantastic! What I learned from the book helped me to successfully complete a project that I was working on.

In a hurry? CLICK HERE to grab your personal copy of Witch-Doctor's Apprentice by Nicole Maxwell!

Below, you'll find many of the books that William S Burroughs talked about in his Creative Reading class. Pick a few to read.

Images in this posts are clickable! Read my review of  Witch-Doctor's Apprentice

Why William S Burroughs Book Recommendations – Books off the Beaten Path?

Are you looking to read more books off the beaten path? You'll find many of William S Burroughs book recommendations unfamiliar to you.

When I was first thinking about the invisible mentor, and all the related ideas that I had at the time, I intended to focus primarily on books off the beaten path. I read and reviewed some of these books, but not as many as I had intended.

Along the way, I started to become more mainstream, which is not necessarily good or bad for that matter. What is important, is that I have to find a way to stand out from the crowd of book review blogs. This is especially important because of the new focus of the blog.

If you are reading what everyone is reading, what makes you stand apart from your peers? One way to stand apart is your interpretation of what you read. This means that you must interact with the information on the page.

If I am going to live my mission of using yesterday's ideas to solve today's problems, then I have to be more intentional about reading books off the beaten path. But it's more than that, it's also finding a balance. It's about blending old books and books off the beaten path with more contemporary ones. It's about reading broadly and deeply.

 Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

In the two-hour Creative Reading lecture, delivered at Naropa University, William S Burroughs – author of Naked Lunch – talked about several books that are off the beaten path. During the audio lecture, as Burroughs described some of the books, they intrigued me so much that I wanted to read them.

One of the criticisms I have of the audio lecture is that a transcript is not included. He describes a book, gives the author’s name, but forgets to include the name of book, which makes it difficult to figure out what book he is talking about when the author has written several books.

Below, you'll find some of the books mentioned, where the names were clear to me, or were easy to find. There are some great books on the list of William S Burroughs book recommendations.

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Class on Creative Reading

William S Burroughs' Book Recommendations: Non-Fiction 

According to William S. Burroughs, you read non-fiction books for information. Remember, in How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler says there are three reasons to read a book – for entertainment, for information, and to further your knowledge on a topic.

 The Gangs of New York Witch-Doctor's Apprentice An Experiment with Time  Journeys Out of the Body

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1. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (Vintage), Herbert Asbury: This is a historical book. Five thousand people were killed in 1853 during the American Civil War. The New York Police Department was reformed during the riots because they couldn’t contain the riots and the army had to be brought in.
2. Witch-Doctor's Apprentice: Hunting for Medicinal Plants in the Amazon, Nicole Maxwell: The author goes to South America to gather information on native remedies and herbs for a large pharmaceutical company. She discovers a contraceptive that lasts seven years and before the time is up if the woman wants to get pregnant there is a drug she can take to reverse the effects of the contraceptive. No drug company wants to produce the contraceptive because it is not financially lucrative in the long-term.
3. Keep the River on Your Right – A Modern Cannibal Tale, Tobias Schneebaum: Author lives with cannibals in Peru.
4. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski: This book was highly recommended that everyone should read at least once. The book is over 900 pages, but there is an abridged version (Selections from Science and Sanity, Second Edition).
5. An Experiment with Time (Studies in Consciousness), John Dunne
6. The Serial Universe, John Dunne
7. In His Image: The Cloning of a Man, David Rorvik
8. As Man Becomes Machine: The Evolution of the Cyborg, David Rorvik
9. Brave New Baby; Promise and Peril of the Biological Revolution, David Rorvik
10. The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study, Kimon Nicolaides
11. Journeys Out of the Body, Robert Monroe
12. You Can't Win, Jack Black: This is an autobiography of a reformed burglar.

William S. Burroughs Recommendations: Fiction Book 

 Two Serious Ladies Nightwood (New Edition) The House and the Brain Fury  The Magus

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1. Two Serious Ladies: A Novel, Jane Bowles
2. Let It Come Down: A Novel, Paul Bowles
3. The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles
4. Nightwood (New Edition), Djuna Barnes
5. The Pilgrim on the Earth, Julien Green
6. If I Were You, Julien Green
7. The Green Hat (Capuchin Classics), Michael Arlen
8. Cain's Book, Alexander Trocchi
9. A Short Trip Home, F Scott Fitzgerald (The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald – A New Collection: Head and Shoulders; Bernice Bobs Her Hair; The Ice Palace; The Offshore Pirate; May Day; The Jelly Bean; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; The Diamond as Big as the Ritz; Winter Dreams)
10. The House and the Brain, A Truly Terrifying Tale: Paranormal Parlor, A Weiser Books Collection, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Ghost story)
11. The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, Ernest Hemingway
12. The Shining, Stephen King
13. The Godfather (Signet), Mario Puzo
14. Jaws: A Novel, Peter Benchley
15. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
16. Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth
17. The Magus, John Fowles
18. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
19. The Nightcomers, Michael Hastings (Retelling of the Turn of the Screw)
20. Beat Not the Bones, Charlotte Jay
21. Nightwings, Robert Silverberg
22. Fury (Henry Kuttner Series Book 1), Henry Kuttner
23. Changeling Earth, Fred Saberhagen
24. Three to Conquer, Eric Frank Russell
25. Walk To End Of World, Suzy McKee Charnas
26. The World Wreckers (Darkover: Against the Terrans: The Second Age), Marion Zimmer Bradley
27. The Terminal Man (Vintage), Michael Crichton

Final Thoughts on William S Burroughs Book Recommendations – Books off the Beaten Path

The majority of the books I had never heard of before I took this class. A few of the books that were made into films, like Jaws, The Godfather, and The Shining, I have seen, how about you? How many of the books off the beaten path have you read?

William S Burroughs Books

JunkyNaked LunchThe Wild Boys: A Book of the DeadLast Words: The Final Journals of William S. BurroughsThe Job: Interviews with William S. BurroughsThe Western LandsQueer: A NovelWord Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader Exterminator!

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Video Credit: William S. Burroughs: 100 Years LA Review of Books

Class On Creative Reading – William S. Burroughs – 1/3 NewThinkable