William S Burroughs Book Recommendations, Revisited

The Class I Played Over and Over

Years ago, I stumbled on a class packed with William S. Burroughs book recommendations. It was his Creative Reading class, recorded at Naropa in Boulder, Colorado, in 1979. Most of the books were off the beaten path, and I wanted to read them all.

There was one problem. The audio was terrible, and there was no transcript. I played it again and again, pen in hand, trying to catch each title. The process took hours.

Sometimes Burroughs named an author but not the book. When that author wrote several books, I had to play the detective. That's how my list came together.

Then something lovely happened. In 2017, the Allen Ginsberg Project shared my list on Burroughs's birthday and credited me by name.

Now, I'm giving the list a refresh. I checked it against the parts of the class that have now been transcribed. I fixed some titles, sorted the books into groups, and added books Burroughs named I missed.

Why Books Off the Beaten Path Still Matter

Do you love reading books off the beaten path? Me too! They make me feel like an insider, like I know things others don't.

Many of these books are very good. The media never hyped them, and many were written decades ago. That's why you haven't heard of them.

If you read what everyone else reads, what makes you stand apart from your peers? One answer is how you interpret what you read. Another is reading what others skip.

My mission is to use yesterday's ideas to solve today's problems. So I have to be intentional about older and lesser-known books. It's also about balance. I blend them with newer books, and I read broadly and deeply.

How Burroughs Built His List

Burroughs told the class that every book on his list was there for a reason. He first thought of it as a list of neglected books. Over time, it grew into something broader.

He had different reasons for different books.

• Neglected gems. Some were out of print and hard to find.
• Trend spotters. Some showed a trend in writing. The Nightcomers retells Henry James's The Turn of the Screw with James's own characters. Burroughs listed it to show the trend, though he didn't think it worked.
• A few great pages. Some books earned a spot for a handful of strong pages.

He also shared ideas that changed how I read. A good book holds up when you reread it. Timing matters too. A book that leaves you cold today may grip you years from now.

He told a story about Samuel Beckett's Watt. At first, he couldn't get into it. A friend he trusted told him to look again, and he saw how great it was.

Burroughs also said reading is like watching a film in your mind. In his words, “if you don't see anything, you won't read the book.”

William S. Burroughs Book Recommendations: Non-Fiction

According to Burroughs, you read non-fiction for information. In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler also names reading for information as one goal, alongside reading for understanding and for entertainment.

Crime and the Underworld

• The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, Herbert Asbury. A history of New York's gangs. It includes the 1863 Draft Riots, when police could not control the city and federal troops were sent in.
• You Can't Win, Jack Black. The memoir of a burglar who went straight. Burroughs read it as a young man and later wrote a foreword for a reissue.

Explorers and Outsiders

• Witch-Doctor's Apprentice: Hunting for Medicinal Plants in the Amazon, Nicole Maxwell. Maxwell searched South America for native remedies for a drug company. She writes about a long-lasting contraceptive that no drug company would produce.
• Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale, Tobias Schneebaum. The author lived among a remote tribe in the jungles of Peru.

Mind, Time, and Perception

• Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski. Burroughs urged everyone to read it at least once. It runs over 900 pages, so try the abridged Selections from Science and Sanity.
• An Experiment with Time, J.W. Dunne. Dunne's theory of dreams and time.
• The Serial Universe, J.W. Dunne. His follow-up book on time.
• Journeys Out of the Body, Robert Monroe. Monroe's account of out-of-body experiences.

Science and the Future

• In His Image: The Cloning of a Man, David Rorvik. Sold as a true story, it is widely considered a hoax. Read it as a sign of its time.
• As Man Becomes Machine: The Evolution of the Cyborg, David Rorvik.
• Brave New Baby: Promise and Peril of the Biological Revolution, David Rorvik.

Art

• The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study, Kimon Nicolaides.

William S. Burroughs Book Recommendations: Fiction

Literary Outsiders

• Two Serious Ladies, Jane Bowles. Burroughs called her a very funny writer.
• Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles.
• The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles. It was out of print when Burroughs made his list, then came back.
• Nightwood, Djuna Barnes.
• The Pilgrim on the Earth, Julien Green.
• If I Were You, Julien Green.
• The Green Hat, Michael Arlen.
• Cain's Book, Alexander Trocchi.

Ghosts and Horror

Burroughs said convincing ghost stories are rare. These are the ones he picked.

• A Short Trip Home, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Burroughs called it one of the best ghost stories in English. It often gets left out of anthologies. You'll find it in The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection.
• The House and the Brain, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. A classic ghost story.
• The Shining, Stephen King. Burroughs used it in class to teach awareness. How fast did you notice that “Redrum” is “murder” spelled backward? It took him three days.
• Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice.
• The Nightcomers, Michael Hastings. A retelling of The Turn of the Screw. Burroughs paired it with Jaws 2, which uses Peter Benchley's characters. Both show writers building on someone else's story.

Bestsellers and Thrillers

Some of these surprised me on a list of books off the beaten path. Burroughs had a point. He noted that a book like Jaws reads almost like a film script. That makes it a useful study in how popular books are built.

• The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, Ernest Hemingway.
• The Godfather, Mario Puzo.
• Jaws 2, Hank Searls.
• The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth.
• The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth.
• The Magus, John Fowles.
• Beat Not the Bones, Charlotte Jay. A mystery set in New Guinea.
• The Terminal Man, Michael Crichton.

Science Fiction

Burroughs said science fiction is a very hard genre. Few books in it convince you that the story could ever happen. These made his cut.

• Nightwings, Robert Silverberg.
• Fury, Henry Kuttner. Also published as Destination Infinity.
• Changeling Earth, Fred Saberhagen.
• Three to Conquer, Eric Frank Russell.
• Walk to the End of the World, Suzy McKee Charnas.
• The World Wreckers, Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Books I Missed the First Time

The transcribed part of the class revealed books I didn't catch on the recording. Burroughs named these as being on his list.

• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, B. Traven. Burroughs thought the film was better than the book. Read both and decide for yourself.
• The Process, Brion Gysin. He named it as neglected and hard to find.
• Denton Welch's books. Burroughs said all of Welch's books belonged on the list. He called Welch an extremely good writer and wanted him back in print. Start with In Youth Is Pleasure.
• My Sister's Hand in Mine, Jane Bowles. Her collected works, including Two Serious Ladies.

He also built the class around a few classics.

• Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad.
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Burroughs saw strong parallels between Gatsby and Lord Jim.
• Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.
• An Outcast of the Islands, Joseph Conrad. He thought it would make a good film.
• Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad. He called it a very good book.

Finally, he planned to discuss these in a later lecture on the anti-hero.

• Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
• Death on the Installment Plan, Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
• The Unfortunate Traveller, Thomas Nashe.

What One Book Did for Me

I read Witch-Doctor's Apprentice by Nicole Maxwell, and it's fantastic! What I learned from it helped me successfully complete a project I was working on.

That's the power of books off the beaten path. You find ideas others don't have, and you can put them to work.

Read my review of Witch-Doctor's Apprentice [add link].

Your Off-the-Beaten-Path Reading Plan

Don't try to read the whole list. Pick three books, each from a different group. Mixing groups stretches your thinking in more than one direction.

Copy this template into your journal and fill it in. Pick the parts that apply to you.

1. Book one. Title, group, and why it caught my eye.
2. Book two. Title, group, and why it caught my eye.
3. Book three. Title, group, and why it caught my eye.
4. The film test. While reading, can I see the story in my mind? If not, is it the book or my timing?
5. One idea to apply. What will I use at work or in life this month?
6. The reread test. Would I read this again? If yes, when?

Keep your notes. If a book doesn't grab you now, put it back on the shelf. As Burroughs found with Watt, it may be the right book at the wrong time.

Books by William S. Burroughs

Want to read Burroughs himself? Here are some of his best-known books.

• Junky
• Queer
• Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
• The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead
• Exterminator!
• The Western Lands
• The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs, with Daniel Odier
• The Adding Machine. His essay collection, with a written version of his Creative Reading lectures.
• Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
• Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs

Final Thoughts

Before this class, I had never heard of most of these books. A few, like Jaws, The Godfather, and The Shining, I knew from the films.

That's what makes a list like this valuable. It points you to books the crowd walked past.

Choose one book from these William S. Burroughs book recommendations and start it this month. Then fill in your reading plan and see what it gives you.

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