I was just reading a bit about Burroughs and put “Naked Lunch” on my to-read list.

Any other recommendations?

Don't believe what the article says about a "disjointed, almost illegible narrative". The Naked Lunch a very good approachable book. Also the movie captures it about as well as a film could.

The real cut up books are The Nova Trilogy, and (although I did read all 3 when I was younger) they are quite a trial.

I also enjoyed "Queer" and "Junkie" which are often not counted as part of his ordinary canon of work (the former was written first and published only posthumously). They're both biographical of course, and approachable. Later in life he wrote The Western Lands which is a fairly straightforward biography, and worth reading.

I recommend to also watch the 1991 movie - it's a piece of art in itself.

I really enjoyed listening to his lectures. Two that stood out for me are below.

Creative reading: https://archive.org/details/naropa_william_s_burroughs_class...

The ethics of wishing: https://archive.org/details/naropa_william_s_burroughs_class...

Or just go through the series in order.

Seconded. My personal favorite is a short essay called "The Discipline of Do Easy", around which Gus van Sant has made a narrated short film[1].

Book wise I enjoyed the Ticket That Exploded, Yagé Papers and the trilogy around Cities Of The Red Night more than Naked Lunch.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoOUBETTyMI

Junkie - The definitive text of junk.

Always interesting to see artwork created by a murderer.

Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. Since threads are sensitive to initial conditions, that's particularly important when a thread is new.

I'm glad you're here to protect these cool/hip murderers from the Beat scene. Maybe you can protect submissions about cool/hip pedophile rapist Allen Ginsberg next.

I'd be interested to read and talk about an article on Allen Ginsburg's work, I don't think his actions should disqualify any discussion around him.

That seems reasonable to me. I have no interest in stopping any discussion about him, only an interest in emphatically stating who he was.