Burroughs Books

Dry is funny, in the spirit of Magical Thinking with a darker twist that's more reminiscent of Wolf at the Table. It's a book about getting sober, but--as is often the case with Augusten Burroughs--it's also much more than that. Entertaining start to finish and if you like Augusten Burroughs, you'll likely read this book in just a few sittings. It made a plane ride go by VERY quickly for me.

I know that "Running with Scissors" is the Burroughs memoir that everyone is supposed to read first, but "Dry" was my introduction to the author. I enjoyed this book very much, and find his writing-style very easy to follow. His ability with dialogue is great, and I found myself caring about characters I orginially dismissed as nothings.

The book is very enjoyable, and it will do strange things to you. I, personally, found myself craving a tall glass of scotch when reading Burroughs describe his love of drinking. Then, I found myself wanting to NEVER drink again when reading his description of his addiction and the aftermath of it all, from blackouts to burned bridges.

It's a really enjoyable read, and it has one of the most touching endings I've read in a long time. I recommend it.

Augusten Burroughs never ceases to amaze. This is by far my favorite book of his. The writing is terrific, the story is captivating. I couldn't put it down. The characters are so real, and even if alcohol isn't you thing, you can identify something in your life that has taken over and relate.

One of my favorite lines comes from a passage where he is describing an ex boyfriend of his. He says,

"He's like this incredibly beautiful Van Gogh painting with slashes all through it. True, it's a Van Gogh. But look at those slashes."

That line made me identify with someone in my own life and helped me realize that sometimes we have to let people go because no matter how much we love them, we cannot make them whole. It actually helped me set aside someone I had been unable to leave behind.

This book is a terrific read. Go out and pick it up. Don't get it from the library- bo buy it. You'll end up buying it anyway.

I read Running with Scissors and found it shocking, almost embarrassing and worried that people would be reading over my shoulder on the metro. But it was great and left me feeling shocked that someone could be raised that way and still turn out relatively normal. Dry was extremely witty, scary, sad, exciting, anger provoking, thought provoking, startling, comforting, and truly enjoyable to read. I found myself impatient for my subway ride home and not caring who might be reading over my shoulder. At the end of the read I decided to go purchase the rest of Augusten's memoirs because I just love his brand of humor and wit and sense of irony and sarcasm. He's, umm, dare I say it, addicting.

This book is much better than Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs' prequel to this book. Thankfully there weren't any graphic sex scenes but there seemed to be a realness about what he was saying. I enjoyed it.
I'm not saying it was my favorite book ever, but it wasn't bad.

Having read and enjoyed several of Augusten Burroughs' books, I was curious as to how good a writer John Elder would be. I also wanted to know more about Aspergers since my youngest grandson is thought to be on the autism spectrum. I found the book more than informative. John Elder's writing is more functional and easier to read than his brother--not to disparage his brother, but to point out the difference in writing styles. I found myself wanting to continue reading to "see what happens next." As a Georgia resident, I enjoyed his references to Georgia. My late husband's family was from Cairo, Ga. and my son is an attorney in Lawrenceville. I am fascinated by memoirs having written my own. I find some to be too bogged down in frivolity and unnecessary description. I prefer to have the story written in a straight forward manner, as this one is. I hope mine is as easy for readers to read as this book was for me.
Sandee CarlisleForgetting the Hurt, Remember the Hope: A Memoir of Endurance

This is exactly what we needed! Awareness, understanding, and the perspective that is MOST important but not heard from enough. This book is funny, easy to read, and so easy to relate to if you are lucky enough to be loved by & love an Aspie :).

Ever since I learned about Asperger's syndrome, I have been wanting to know more. When I read the first review of the book in People magazine I knew I had to read it. I sensed that someone I loved very much just might have Aspergian traits and I hoped this book would answer some questions I had. I expected more of a textbook nonfiction book and was quite surprised to find that it was a tale of growing up, outside the definition of "normal." I sat down with a highlighter expecting to mark the most relevant parts and just read with serious attention rather than studying the facts. To always wonder why you aren't accepted would challenge anyone, but John Elder Robison learned how to survive and grow to accept his differences and overcome criticism of teachers, family and friends. He found his own happiness and was able to accept who he was and become successful in his own world and share his intellect and thought processes with all of us. Can I actually say that my loved one has Aspergian traits now that I've read the book? No, but I have learned some ways to deal with a highly intellectual, very analytical and logical human being. Thank you, John Elder.

We have an amazing and gifted son with Aspergers.

I first heard about this book listening to NPR on my way to work one day. When I arrived at work, two of my colleagues had heard John as well and made sure to tell me about John and his book. That weekend, my in-laws visited from New York and my mother-in-law already was halfway through the book. That Sunday evening I got my own copy before a business trip and read it on a flight from Boston to San Jose. I could not put it down.

I recommend this book for parents, teachers, grand parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, girlfriends, boyfriends, school bus drivers, neighbors, colleagues, managers and anyone else who interacts with a person in the Autism spectrum.

This book gave me tremendous insights to my son and how my son views his world, which is very differnt than how I view mine. I was given the lense or decoder ring that helped me see (or at least begin to understand)what my son sees and feels, does not see and does not feel. I was so entertained and moved by John's book that I sent him an email of thanks immediately upon arrival at the San Jose airport.

When John was a preteen and teen, he wanted to make friends but did not know how, which is the opposite of most perceptions of children with Asperger's. In John's adult years, he now wishes that his parents and other mentors in his life pushed him more to engage socially. I took this to heart. This has proven true with my son who just recently said that he wants to make friends but is afraid to fail and that he may be viewed as goofy. All kids feel this way, I know, but it is so profound and acute with my son and John. This and many other passages in the book helped me tremendously.

This is an entertaining and at times dark and funny book you should read.

John Elder Robison has Asperger's Syndrome, but it wasn't diagnosed until he was in this thirties. Asperger's Syndrome wasn't even understood until the early 1980's. Aspergers is a form of autism. Most with Aspergers are usually highly intelligent BUT have a difficult time communicating with other people and tend to be loners. When they do express themselves it normally all comes out wrong which offends other people.

John Elders mother was mental problems and the father was an alcoholic.

This is a memoir not a fictional story so it doesn't flow like other books. The writing is a bit choppy at times and at other times goes into too much details. So what. John Elders mind doesn't work like ours and shouldn't be criticised for not having a brilliant writing form.

I really enjoyed the audio and would recommend it to anyone. John Elder proves different is not always wrong.

very good book it took
me there days to read it.
the writing is very good
but it leaves you asking
queszions about Jane and Tarzan,
are they going to leave together
or Jane going to marry the other
guy Claton?

but it is a good boook

The shipment was very fast. I appreciated receiving the book so quickly. It was rated as in very good condition, however, I think the rating should have been fair or good.

This book has action, excitement, drama, suspense, and unfortunately racism. Edgar Rice Burroughs clearly wrote to a white, male audience with this book, which in 1914 when it was first published was likely the case. Tarzan is that primordial man with no obligations but to himself who somehow teaches himself to write while also teaching himself to be the most cunning entity in the jungle. He can read and write and then go kill an ape or lion on his way home. What a guy.

The fact that he is white and somehow has more survival skills and jungle knowledge than the native blacks is a bit puzzling, but again, remember the time frame it was written in. Whites had come to dominate Africa, as its rightful owners in their opinions, so why not have a hero who can do it all better than any of the natives.

But let's not forget the entertainment value. I rate the entertainment value high as it is a good story and moves at a fast pace. Again, white readers will feel easier about the book than others, but all in all it is not a bad book. It is a bit peculiar that the two examples of ship crews are both prone to mutiny, but maybe Burroughs was trying to make some kind of unwritten point.

I can forgive some of the unrealistic things as well as the multiple coincidences, but I cannot reconcile how Tarzan, who knew how to read and write, but not yet how to speak, could sign his own name on a love note to Jane.

He had never learned pronunciation of letters and words, so it would be IMPOSSIBLE for him to have signed his name.

What more can we say of Tarzan of the Apes - he truly is an American original, and has influenced characters in film, television and comic books from the Beastmaster to Sheena to Ka-Zar and beyond, as well as standing as a popular culture phenomenon in his own right. We always think we know the whole story - a man raise din the jungle, befriended by animals, fighting whatever danger comes at him with his Girl Friday, Jane, at his side. However, if we return to the original novel, we find a more complex and, perhaps, less satisfying story.

Tarzan of the Apes tells, of course, the story of Tarzan of the Apes - the scion of a noble family marooned by pirates on the African coast - he comes to be raised by apes when his parents are brutally murdered by Kerchak, the leader of their pride. Under their tutelage, young Tarzan becomes a formidible warrior, while also utterly self-conscious of the fact that he is, somehow, not like the other apes. Eventually, Tarzan acceeds to the leadership of his pride, and battles cannibals, lions, and other dangers in the jungle - as well as encountering the also-marooned Jane Porter, her suitor, John Clayton, and her father, Professor Porter. Together they must brave the jungle and the nearby cannibals, and also attempt to find a way home. Romance, intrigue, and action are skillfully interwoven.

One must, however, read Tarzan with more than just a grain of salt. Certainly, I'm not talking about the book's major conceit - that a man could be raised to successful adulthood by apes in the jungle primeval - but about some of the details - Tarzan teaching himself to read and write perfect English from a book he's found in an abandoned cabin, for instance. There is a lot of suspension of disbelief that must be performed to enjoy this book. However, enjoy it you will. Burroughs has an uncanny knack for laying his characters psychologically bare - even the animals - to the reader, so whether we love them or hate them, we sympathize with them.

Perhaps the major complaint I have with this book is its pacing. It truly doesn't become interesting until we are about 100+ pages in - much of the first part is taken up with Tarzan's parents' experiences, and Tarzan's childhood. This is, unfortunately, frightfully dull, and not up to the usually rousing Edgar Rice Burroughs standard to which I am used (readers of A Princess of Mars and succeeding John Carter of Mars novels will no doubt agree). Once the book gets going, however, it is worth every moment of your time. A fun read.

Like many, my introduction to William S. Burroughs was Naked Lunch; a book that may very well be the most authentic description of a drug addict's personal, nightmarish hell. I picked up Junky afterwards, not knowing what to expect, and came away disappointed at first. "That's it?" was the thought ringing through my head, as Junky comes off as a straight forward tale of a drug addict on the brink, compared to the picture that Burroughs so vividly painted with Naked Lunch. Deciding to give Junky another chance and putting everything about Naked Lunch on the back burner, the book now comes off as a cautionary tale more than anything else. Burroughs weaves a harrowing, autobiographical tale of Bill Lee: a man with an Ivy League background who discovers the highs and joys of morphine and other members of the junk family, and the experiences that Lee goes through as he tries to kick the habit, only to fall back into it again and again. As said before, Junky is a more straight forward portrait of addiction, and when read side by side with Naked Lunch, comes off as the reality of Burroughs' drug raddled Hell. It definitely doesn't have the kind of impact of Naked Lunch, or even some of Burroughs' other works, but there is still something about Junky that resonates a powerful voice that one should always open an ear for. All in all, if Naked Lunch was your introduction to Burroughs as well, don't let Junky's more straight forward narrative put you off, as it is definitely worth your time.

If you're looking for something different, check out this impressive first novel. Although not a long novel (about 120 pp.), it's wildly original, highly descriptive writing begs a second reading.

_Junky_ is surprisingly well-structured. Believe it or not, there is a plot!

Characters drop in and out of the story, so that the novel itself feels like some sort of crash pad. Everyone is fair game for Burrough's observations; many are described in a surreal, hilarious way. I like the way Burroughs varies sentence and paragraph length, giving an improvisational feel to the book, as if it's a be-bop record or a Jackson Pollock drip painting. (And maybe that's the intent?)

Again, nothing escapes Burrough's critical eye. Although he is homosexual and a junkie, he shows contempt for some of the trappings and adherents of these 1950s subcultures.

Some of my favorite lines include:

- "Waves of hostility and suspicion flowed from his large brown eyes like some sort of television broadcast."

- "'You're both mother (expletive deleted)ers.' She was half-asleep. Her voice was matter-of-fact as if referring to actual incest."

- "A young man lurched in with some object under his arm." (Burrough's word choice is hilarious - "lurched"!)

- "The place looked like a Chop Suey joint. ... The walls were painted black and there was a Chinese character in red lacquer on one wall.

'We don't know what it means,' she said.

'Shirts thirty-one cents,' I suggested."

Perhaps Burrough's self-observation and sense of humor likely contributed to his longevity. It's hard to believe he lived to age 84!

_Naked Lunch_ is next on my list.

I first devoured this book back in 1991 as I sat in a bathtub in Liverpool. Never before had I come across anything like it. Upon this rereading, I remain surprised at the way it still manages to resonate. I am not a big fan of Burroughs overall as I found Naked Lunch a very hard slog, but the clear, simple prose of Junky tells a-- regrettably brief--tale of a colorful life spent on the margins. Fifty years later its narrative continues to shock. The characters and associations described within are as unique as you'll find in literature. I just wish the book was longer as Burroughs wayward days were interesting enough for 500 pages. It moves like On the Road but the author's realism is what one finds most endearing. It's a life most of us will never know, but Old Bull Lee's snapshot is good enough.

Junky: The Definitive Text of Junk by William S. Burroughs ***

To be honest I did not enjoy this very much. I am a massive Burroughs fan, he is easily one of my favorite authors of all time, and I have read nearly all his work, and enjoyed almost all of it. Junky is the exception to that. I at times felt the book to be, dare I say boring. Burroughs attempt at the occasional humor was dry and not witty like on most of his work. I found the plot, or lack there of really, to be bland and at times annoying. His style seems to even be strained here, which is sad considering he is one of the most original writers in American history, as well as one of the most underrated.

Now even this, the definitive text didn't save the story for me. I am not saying this was totally bad, so please don't get me wrong. Junky has lots of potential, and could have been one of his best works, but for me personally this just seems weak for an author of his stature.

Junky could be the most effective anti-drug book ever written.

This is not the William S. Burroughs of The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs, William S.) and certainly not the same guy who wrote Naked Lunch: The Restored Text. This is a Burroughs who's not talking to himself or talking to his admirers. Instead this an author who is stretching to reach the reader with the actual smelly, lonely, desperate, empty reality of the junky.

It's a reality that Burroughs has explored in his fiction and that he has occasionally mined for characters and atmosphere. But nowhere, not even in Exterminator! has he come as close to offering up this direct-if bleak-conversation with the reader. It's worth noting that, outside the world of book-lovers, this may be his most well-known work because it does such a stark and effective job of describing the day-to-day world as it's experienced by the junky.

Lynn Hoffman, author of the somewhat different bang BANG: A Novel

Definition of a page-turner, loved it. The authors got so much out of their interview subjects, the personal thoughts and dialog left you feeling like you were a part of these negotiations. They portrayed everyone even-handedly when it was probably tempting to make villains out of Ross Johnson or Henry Kravis. Extremely entertaining, a first class example of literary non-fiction.

The author said it himself, "What does all this have to do with business? ". I bought this book hoping to get an insight into how large companys are run. Unfortunately it was full of details on how companys are sold, not run. I suppose if that is what you are after, then the book does its job. But if you wanted to learn something about real business, this is NOT the book for you.

The mantra "Greed is good" was uttered by that 1980s paragon of Wall Street virtue, Gordon Gekko, yet it could just have easily been any one profiled in this mind-warping 1990 account of the leveraged buyout (LBO) of cigarette-and-cookie conglomerate RJR Nabisco, starting with RJR's chief executive, Ross Johnson.

Johnson was the one who first saw the benefits of taking RJR's undervalued stock private, boosting both his wealth and control. Small economies were not for him.

"I'm telling you, we're not going to start running a pushcart operation here," he tells his LBO partners at the outset. "I don't want a bunch of your guys coming around saying we should have five jets instead of six."

Those jets, used strictly by Johnson and his C-suite buddies for such emergencies as shuttling Johnson's beloved pet dog to safety after it bit someone, were one of many symbols of Johnson excess. Just as odd were his stabs at practicality, like introducing a smokeless cigarette, "Premier", which drew like chalk and tasted worse.

Authors Bryan Burroughs and John Helyar, who covered the story in 1988 for the Wall Street Journal, seem to have been everywhere at once, and show no sign of suffering from lack of access. Whether it's LBO king and Johnson nemesis Henry Kravis, other bidding groups led by First Boston and Forstmann Little, or the RJR management board, everyone seems well represented. One gets the feeling some of these people enjoyed the chance to tell of their small part in one of the biggest stories of the decade.

Yet nothing seemed on the level here, least of all the money put up by the bidders, which had a heavy reliance on junk bonds. Numbers themselves made no sense. At one point in the bidding, Kravis engineers a deal whereby he and his partners are paid their operating expenses by RJR in exchange for hanging around another hour.

"Forty-five million dollars to wait sixty minutes. Incredibly [RJR head legal adviser Peter] Atkins and Company thought it was a good deal."

Burroughs and Helyar's greatest accomplishment is by sending you deep enough behind the looking glass that you understand Atkins' position. The authors do a great job of bringing the rest of the fantasy world to life with welcome doses of color and wit.

At times, especially at the end, they get hung up with the level of detail they present, telling us not only who was at a particular meeting but where they sat, who was eating an apple, who was wearing a puff handkerchief, what color it was, etc.

But the book is solid and well-written, and not nearly as snippy as it could have been. Only Johnson's buddy Ed Horrigan comes off as a complete hardcase. Johnson himself seems fairly amiable even at his greediest.

The well-remembered HBO adaptation softsoaps Johnson further by having him played by the quintessentially smooth James Garner. It's an enjoyable movie that made me want to read this. Now I find the book preferable for the more balanced way it handles other characters like Kravis and Ted Forstmann (a joke character in the movie, but a prescient figure in the book who came up with the expression that makes for the title.) There are a lot of brickbats in evidence here, but no axes.

Greed is still with us, of course, yet "Barbarians" takes us to a time when it managed at once to be more comical and stylish than today.

Many people I know have read this book and rave about how good it is. However it is really just a factual account of the events with no real insight. The writing is ok but you are not transformed into the action. You get no since of the pressure or the egos. The characters are the real deal and the writes don't all you to understand them or even get you to like or hate them. The book left me a bit flat but if you have no idea how companies are bought and offers are made it is still worth the read. If you know how companies are bought it is worth the read just to be scared to death.

Barbarians at the Gate is a classic of the business book genre, and with the private equity boom we have seen in the last couple of years, it is still as relevant as it was when it came twenty years ago. It is the story or some extremely unlikable rich people brought low by equally unsavory, but much smarter rich people, and it gives you an inside feel for the major wall street deal like no other book can.

Barbarians at the Gate is the story of an attempt to take RJR Nabisco private, and then the series of take over attempts that were instigated by the original privatization plan. Johnson, the CEO of RJR, comes off as pompous, full of himself, and not very smart. He's like a frat boy who makes it by glad handing people and buying rounds of drinks. Kravis, of legendary private equity firm KKR, comes off like a financier god. Brilliant, pushy, and beyond your puny human morals. Guess who gets the company in the end.

A must read for anyone interested in modern Wall Street.

I won't rehash the plot; plenty of reviewers here tell what the story is about. I will say, though, that this book begins the career of Edgar Rice Burroughs and that it's success leads the author to create Tarzan, Pellucidar, and many other stories. And more Barsoom! John Carter, Confederate veteran, fights, runs, leaps, loves, befriends and brings the races of dying Mars together when he isn't busy waging war or rescuing maidens. Actually, he brings the races of dying Mars together WHILE waging war and rescuing maidens. One can clearly see how Tars Tarkas begat Chewbacca, and how John Carter himself begat Flash Gordan, Luke Skywalker, and Superman... yes, Superman.
And the second book, _The Gods of Mars_, is even better!

Purchase was smooth, delivery prompt and well packaged. The book's condition was excellent for its age.

I read plenty of pulp fiction, sword and sorcery, etc. when I was a foolish young teenager (and even before). Years later, I reread some of them and was disappointed, even appalled. Had I enjoyed reading such dreck? Imagine my delight when I finally read "A Princess of Mars" and found it just as fun as the first time! Don't get me wrong. There is nothing profound here, no literary brilliance for the ages or anything like that. The "science" of the science fiction here is often questionable, though it helps to keep in mind that some of the sillier-sounding things were not so far-fetched when it was written. But if you want a good, clean, fast-paced adventure you can do a lot worse than this, and the numerous sequels. There is little excess verbiage, unlike most modern action novels I've tried, and you will probably tear through this and want more.

One thing I'll point out is the airship warfare depicted in the novels. Today it sounds quaint. Before they were displaced by airplanes, the airships really were terrors of the skies, just as lethal as the book depicts. Imagine those cute Goodyear blimps overhead, raining down fire and death instead of running ads, and you will have some appreciation of the potential of airships in a world without heavier-than-air flying machines.

Take a brawny Virginian adventurer, and get him to the Red Planet. Have him captured by aliens. Let there be a beautiful woman with an exotic name for him to fall for. Add a castastrophic failure of technology that could doom the planet except for the slim chance that John Carter, our hero, can save the day.

Not to mention the odd battle or war.

Mars rocks....even in 1912
I just finished read A Princess Of Mars by Mr. Burroughs. Its amazing to note that he wrote this in 1912. The science sounds plausible and for those items where he can't nail things down he has the 9 rays of the sun to account for anti gravity and an atmosphere generator to overcome the problems of Mars atmosphere. As for John Carters transport to Mars, I don't know if future novels attempt to explain that but I am going with the initial transit due to something in that cave where the knock out / paralysis gas (?) overcame him. After that he is transported back one can assume in much the same fashion as Star Trek like transporters. Perhaps its all due to some mad scientist sort of overlord trying to utilize heavy gravity earth man to kick start a stagnant society. He is perhaps called back and returned due to a tracking implant within his body. Obviously at the height of Martian culture hundreds of thousands of years ago they may have achieved nuclear power but I am willing to overlook that that has been lost or perhaps become culturally unacceptable knowledge In the end if you respect the story and are a little awed at his guesses, mad and otherwise, at building his novels Mars back in 1912. Mr. Burroughs was at the dawn of flight and we only had inklings of the power of radium and there weren't even diving tanks for scuba diving yet..
I loved the wireless guided explosive bullet rifle, enjoyed the enormous flying battleships powered by antigravity, the mention of powerful telescopes that inform them of the Earth and in a couple of ways that shall go unmentioned I dug the well nigh impregnable fortress for the atmosphere generator.
This is a fast paced novel and within the first 30 pages much has happened and you know a number of things about mars. So hang on tight and enjoy the ride and though written in 1912 you will be impressed.

This book has a lot of details and is very good. Don't expect this book to tell you lots and lots about the gangsters of the era... it's more of a detailed account of the FBI and how they got organized. Again, lots of details, making it slow reading, but very good material!

This is a great book. Author infers in his introduction that this was a labor of love and it shows in his writing. At over 500 pages, it shows the relationship of the five major criminal gangs of the 1933-34 time period. Those were the Barker Gang, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, and Dillenger. With the exception of Bonnie and Clyde (who were strictly small time), all knew each other and helped in raids. None of these people were glamourous since they all murdered people. Dillenger killed three policemen. Bonnie, Clyde, and Baby Face Nelson were psychopaths. Why people had admiration for them is beyond me, but the times were hard and many felt banks were as crooked as those who robbed them.

This book also details the rise of the FBI and how Hoover interferred with the progress of investigations. Purvis was mildly incompetent. Why some of these gangsters roomed the streets was due to FBI leads not being followed up. In the end, the FBI became more professional due to this crime wave. Hoover went on to become the Crime Dictator for forty years.

This is a great book and is very readable. For those interested in the Great Depression and the fall of the bank robbers, this is a treasure trove of information. Highly recommended.

A very interesting book. Let's you know exactly what happens back in the old days. Good reading.

Yes Mr. Burrough made a few mistakes with addresses and name spellings but overall I was impressed with how he made all the information flow together so well. This was a huge task to take on and I was surprised how good of a job was done. I did have to dock a star due to the amount Mr. Burrough relied on Alvin Karpis's word for word retelling of events that happened so long ago- it gives the book a bit of a fiction feel to it at times. Overall this was a very good read.

For history buffs, this is a find! I could not put this book down! WoW, loaded, just packed with information on the PUBLIC ENEMIES! With all the fuss now, with Johnny Depp starring in Public Enemies, based on this book, I am sure this will be THE book everyone will have to read. The movie is coming out in 2009. Filmed in the Midwest; Wisconsin, Indiana, etc, and even at Little Bohemia, in Northern Wisconsin, where the Feds goofed up bigtime and J.Edgar Hoover covered, or at least tried to cover up their blunder, when innocent citizens were gunned down, instead of the "gangstas". You will love this, you won't want the book to end, it covers all of them, Johhny Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Ma Barker and her gang, Machine Gun Kelly. It's all here, and of course, Bonnie and Clyde. You will be right at the scenes, even when they met their bloody early demise, and most of them went out shooting their tommy guns. The author did a magnificent job of researching his subjects. You won't be disappointed spending a weekend reading this one!

In the 1990s, the pride of Russia's space program was its aging space station, Mir. So much had changed as the Soviet Union broke apart, with nothing more apt to bring the changes home than the launch facilities' being located, now, in a separate and independent country. Yet that space program's culture remained the same, and the American astronauts who volunteered to serve tours of duty aboard Mir found it alien not just to U.S. culture - but, far more tellingly, to that of NASA. Especially to NASA post-Challenger, where every employee was encouraged to speak up about safety concerns.

It wasn't that way aboard Mir. The cosmonauts (two members of each three-person crew), working on a bonus and fines system, knew they had to stay aboard and keep the station operating no matter what. Even when their own rule book said it was time to get aboard the attached Soyuz capsule and abandon ship, after the first decompression of an occupied spacecraft in history, they refused to leave. Leaks of toxic coolant, fires, even complete power losses that shut the station down - leaving it in absolute darkness during the night phase of each Earth orbit - nothing convinced the cosmonauts it was time to go home ahead of schedule. Were they just plain wrong? Was their ground control, which expected this of them and made it absolutely clear this was the case, heartless and out of touch with the reality those aloft were facing? So it often seemed to the series of American astronauts, a varied lot who for the most part "volunteered" for this duty because each knew it was his or her only chance to fly.

Author Burrough brings out the facts in often exhaustive detail (so exhaustive that even this lifelong space program junkie sometimes had to slog through chapters while wondering, "Is this going somewhere? Really, is it?"). His research is meticulous, his sources impeccable, and his conclusions - when they're finally reached - wind up being the reader's own, because that is exactly what his writing achieves. For that reason, I'm calling this book a winner. Its only faults are being a bore at times (there really are passages I swear only an engineer would find interesting!), and switching tenses in a haphazard manner that's sure to drive readers who notice such things crazy.

This book is an excellent look at life on board an aging space station. The author does an amazing job conveying all the problems on board including the relationship between the cosmonauts as well as the problems with TSUp (the Russian "mission control"). What also makes the book even more exciting are the transcripts of the communication between the cosmonauts and the ground team in Russia. We really get a sense of actually being in the station and going through the chaos along with the cosmonauts. One of the best accounts of life on board a space station. Highly recommended.

This is a very well written and very well researched book. I was very much drawn into the story from the beginning of the book until the last page. Burrough did in depth interviews with about everyone associated with the program and conveys his interviews into a cohesive, interesting and very intriguing story . . . it was hard to put down!

This is a great book, very entertaining! You'll feel like you are really there, floating around in the space station.The book goes into a lot of behind-the-scenes personality clashes between astronauts/cosmonauts. Tells the story of the Mir and International space stations.

NASA these days is nothing like what I expected. I thought an astronaut had to have balls. You know, as in courageous. Apparently that is no longer the case. NASA is now just another bureaucratic monstrosity that is more about paperwork and kissing butt than exploring outer space. I read in despair about how everyone must act like a little girl if they want to fly into space. That is, they must be cute, pretty, obedient little cyphers. They must have a half dozen college degrees and have a clean record that reveals a predictable, risk-adverse character. They must also get on the good side of some fat bureaucrat who is in charge of the place. Yes, Abbey, I'm talking about you, you fat henpecked b*tch.

No wonder NASA is no longer breaking ground with its manned missions. It is now run like a freakin' accounting firm, complete with effeminate sissies who pass for men and plenty of loud-mouthed spoiled brats who enjoy being women.

This is an excellent, informative book, and I ate it up. And it is no wonder that space exploration has stagnated in the past 30 years. Every successful company needs to be initiated by a strong man with balls. But down the road, it is inevitable that the women move in and make everything complicated. Rules are made, rules are made, rules are made, etc. Layer after arbitrary layer. Risk is abhored and chased away. Then you end up with today's NASA, where a character like Abbey must have his butt kissed if a man wishes to ride the space shuttle. What ever happened to daring? Why do we let the soccer moms take charge and mess it all up???

Once I started reading this historical account of life as a hobo, grifter and thief from the turn of the last century, I just couldn't put it down. It was very well written and an interesting telling of life on the road, riding trains and the experience of someone who lived his life on the very edges of regular society. It gives the reader a clear picture of what that experience was like. Although the author is essentially anonymous, using a fictious name, there are glimpses of his real life when he mentions cities, institutions and real people that he visited and knew. A very worthwhile book.

as far as im concerned its the best piece of hobo literature out there. jack black is an amazing writer and it shows. he doesnt try to get your sympathy and is just documenting his life and those surrounding him in a fantastic matter that you think he had spent 20 years on this book.

My son, who this book was purchased for, enjoyed this book very much. Thank you.

This is an amazing story that drags you into this guy's lonely world. Sexy, it ain't. It's a man's, man's world. It's obvious this guy did some hard time getting all the details down. I guess living it would allow you plenty of ammunition. After reading I had acquired a whole new paranoia regarding breaking and entering. It's depressing and lonely and stark. This is a book that needs to live on and on.

I thought this was a tip-top book. Blacky's adventures out West and in Canada around the turn of the century were very intruiging. I just wish there were more books written by him and not so much of a mystery of what happened to him later in life. Or maybe that's what makes him so appealing. I agree with several others about the "extras" at the end of the book. Especially his article that appeared in Harpers. That could've have been written today.

Fierce symbolisms that rips out the guts of whitebread America. The most profound gem is Burrough's prediction of the AIDS crisis. He was able to capture in this book the symptoms he saw develop in the homosexual underground years before it was announced to the world at large.

Yes, here we trip through a group of 1700's pirates cruising the sea, and at first really enjoying the waves, the comradeship, the nature, the heavens, and just about anything else one may enjoy on such a trip..It is a nice hallucinatory, semi sci-fi trip until it...frankly goes from the dreamlike to the grotesque to the ...well, let's just say scatalogical, to keep it simple. No doubt this odd fellow could write, but whether you want to share his truly bizarre daydreams is problematic, to be kind. Sure, he was in the same crowd as Kerouac, but universes apart! Read all of Jack K. before tripping into Burroughs!

This is the most accessible William Burroughs novel ever written. It has more structure, cohesion and plot than most of his other works, so if you are a first time Burroughs reader this is the one to go for...Burroughs is a genius and a prophet of 20th Century literature. His writing pushes the boundaries of imagination,sexuality, social interaction and time. He is an alien soul injected into the dead body of a homosexual junkie. He started shooting up as a 1 yr old baby and by the age of 2 he was having anal sex with other babies in nightclub toilets. His stream of consciousness will transport you to planets and worlds that transcend human experience but also unveil the instincts that drive us to the edge of depravity and extinction. William Burroughs is in love with humanity and he knows how to show it. After all he did shoot his wife in the head xxx

I can't say that I want to "Be Like Burroughs" because there were some instances in this novel Cities of the Red Night (and others) where I thought he was on the verge of losing his mind. The stories span from homo-erotic pornography to violent surrealism but his talent was obvious. There are political messages on the nature of freedom and individualism, however an average reader could easily be distracted by but all of the surreal imagery and sexual situations. Yet I recommend that you read Naked Lunch first before reading this book.

Burroughs knew what he was talking about. This book along with the Place of Dead Roads was the final, most complete and coherant summation of the Burroughs vision/nightmare. Just by virtue of his personal style these books mix utopian essay, apocalyptic nightmare, gut wrenching horror, and valid cultural criticism. As far as experimental fiction goes, you won't find any more readable, in the Burroughs canon or anywhere else. A word of caution: these books are for thinking people; they are not brain dead entertainment with cutesy characters or happy endings. It is not easy reading. Burroughs regards the natural condition of humaity and civillization as ultimately dark and depraved. Few people want to believe that, and those who do may have a hard time coming to grips with such a pessimistic conclusion about human nature. Such a vision provokes and challengues us all. Those brave souls who, though cold, disoriented and terrified choose to light a candle with trembling hands and willingly descend the staircase into the forsaken cellar of Burroughs' mind will not return unscathed or unrewarded.