Victor Bockris

Victor Bockris has written biographies of Keith Richards, Patti Smith, and Andy Warhol. His most recent book is Rebel Heart (St. Martin’s Press, $15), co-authored with Bebe Buell.

Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader edited by James Grauerholz (Grove Press, $16). Burroughs is the most important writer, as Andy Warhol is the most important painter, of the long reaction to World War II. “Last Words,” a rigorous calling to account of the demons who brought death to 100 million in the war, is the absolute zenith of his career.

Ladies and Gentleman: Lenny Bruce by Albert Goldman (out of print). William Shawn, then-editor of The New Yorker, said this biography changed the rules of the game. It provides a microscopically detailed account of Bruce’s personal life, and places him on the cutting edge in the pantheon of the most influential artists of the early ’60s, alongside Burroughs, Warhol, and Bob Dylan.

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The Lotus Crew by Stewart Meyer (Serpent’s Tail, $12). The first book since Junkie to pin the hard underbelly of the heroin business. Set in the back streets of New York in the 1980s, Meyer’s novel is an almost perfect book without a wasted word.

The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, & Corso in Paris, 1957–1963 by Barry Miles (Grove Press, $14). This wonderful, evocative account of several years in Paris in the late ’50s and early ’60s relates how beat writers Gregory Corso, Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Brion Gysin hooked up with French mathematician Jacques Stern in a seedy Left Bank hotel, and changed the rules of American literature.

Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader edited by John Martin (HarperCollins, $16). This haunting anthology is like an autobiographical memoir, told through the prism of Buk’s best writing. It had me laughing so hard I had to hold onto my chair to keep from falling onto the floor.

Red Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes

(Dr. Strangelove),

(The Magic Christian),