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Apr 17, 2008

James rated it:

Hunter S. Thompson’s first book, Hell’s Angels is not nearly as “gonzo” or as good as his later writings and not nearly as fresh and fascinating as, say, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Hell’s Angels is a far more straightforward piece of journalism than HST’s later work but it is still an interesting read some 45 years on (certainly no small feat).

For one, it is cursorily interesting in how Hell’s Angels has quickly become outdated with references like, “Hell, eight dollars was a case More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2007

Jessica rated it:

Hunter Thompson was this crazy guy who threw himself into his research (literally). He spawned a movement called Gonzo journalism. We read this book in college and learned all about Gonzo. So in 1965 he gets the brilliant idea of joining up with the Hell's Angels. This is back when they were extremely violent. This book is all about his experience riding along with the them. I didn't particularly care for his writing style or the content, so needless to say I am not a fan of this book.
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10 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2009

Petra X rated it:

I'd just read Jay Dobyn's extremely exciting and fully-involved No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels. Dobyn was an undercover cop whose total immersion in Angels' culture led to him substituting his real life for what was really a job. Because it was so involved, it took me a while to get into Hunter Thompson's cool, cynical, totally-detached own year-long involvement with the Angels, whose beer, drugs and addiction to speed he was happy to share, bu More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2009

Kristina rated it:

Both Hunter S. Thompson and the Hell's Angels bring preconceived notions to mind:
Thompson was a crazy sonofabitch. He was a nutbag druggie who liked to blow things up.
The Hell's Angel's are crazy motherfuckers. Remember Altamont? They killed like 500 people while providing concert security for the Rolling Stones.

Both of these notions have some basis in reality. Thompson liked drugs and blowing things up. The Hell's Angels did provide security at Altamont, where one person was More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 29, 2008

Brandon rated it:

I just read this for perhaps the fifth time. From this book up to about 1978 Hunter was at his peak and every book he wrote in that period is writing of the highest order. The guy was a major American prose stylist. Those of you who may scoff at this assertion will one day realize that I'm right. Hunter doesn't get nearly enough credit for being the very intelligent guy he was, and that intelligence is very visible in this book, written before the character of Hunter Thompson was developed enoug More...

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Jul 28, 2008

Kelly rated it:

I love Hunter S., and granted, this is his first book, and I love books written about this time, and there's great insight and observations and great writing and all, but I got halfway through this book more than once and (granted again, this was during my A.D.D. phase where I couldn't finish any book, I usually had 4-6 books going at the same time and never finished any of them) didn't reach the end. Well I finally picked it up again and read it from beginning to end, without reading a bunch o More...

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Mar 12, 2009

Andy rated it:

Still the best book about bikers ever written - and completely unromanticized, too. Their lifestyle is shown in all its greasy and grimy glory. And Hunter took a bad stomping at the end of the book by some vicious Angels. Written over forty years ago and still rawer than a lot of shit out there!

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2012

Nick rated it:

Was this the book that started gonzo journalism? I had a copy for years, and never got round to reading it, and don’t know what happened to it. As you probably know, HST was a pop culture journalist who had some contacts with the Angels of the San Francisco area, and was soon hanging out with them. It is a good look at the HA lifestyle; they strip Harleys down and ride them, they hold parties, drink a lot and take drugs, they go on big runs across the state, they cause trouble if they’re in the More...

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Dec 19, 2011

Ensiform rated it:

The book that cemented Thompson’s reputation as the premier journalist of the crazed, and deservedly so. Thompson rode and hung with the Angels for a couple of years, and he presents them, at the height of their notoriety, through his own cynical, paranoiac freak prism. So we see the Angels as bearded, drooling, vicious outlaws ready to rape or stomp anything and anyone who crosses their path, but we also see them as tired old goons, knowing full well that they’re losers, and just trying to ha More...

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Dec 01, 2011

Matt rated it:

Hell's Angels: a Strange and Terrible Saga, by Hunter S. Thompson, is an autobiographical novel about his encounters with the Hell's Angels. One thing that I thought was interesting is how he became involved with the Hell's Angels for two years to write this book. During those two years he shares many drunken and drug induced nights and more then once shared some nasty beatings. The language he uses in the novel is exciting and keeps your attention: "...like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a More...

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May 10, 2011

Tocotin rated it:

I knew next to nothing about Hell's Angels, so it was an educating trip. But at the end I'm not really sure what the author really thought about them, and I understand about being objective, but I'd like to know... probably at the end, when he got beaten by the group of people he had been hanging out with for a year, and whom he had studied and amused (being amused by them in turn) - at the end his last words were "exterminate all the brutes!", and that was possibly the closest thing t More...

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Mar 23, 2011

Nick rated it:

I'm a fan of literature from the 60's and 70's, it was a time before computers and modern consumerism. But it was just on the cusp. With the addition of drugs, crazy freak-your-brain mind expansion drugs life on the edge was all that much better. It was during this edge time, a point when something changes from a solid to a liquid, tremendous energy was released, that energy: the freewheeling barbarians - THE HELLS ANGELS. In a way I envy their every move. Their complete freedom and disregard, t More...

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Dec 22, 2010

illiterate rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 07, 2010

Donna rated it:

This was a quick read about a group that everyone has heard of but not many people seem to know much about. Thompson spent a year or so hanging out with the Hell's Angels, so the book includes a lot of his first-hand experiences. He also wrote about both the public perception of the Hell's Angels in the mid-60s and about how they viewed themselves.

It includes a lot of facts and stories, but they aren't overly sensationalized or romanticized. One of my favorite aspects was Thompson's More...

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Jan 27, 2010

Jeffrey rated it:

A friend let me borrow this book almost two years ago now. It was the first piece of Thompson that I had ever read and I burned through it in a little more than a day. It was nearly impossible for me to put down and I have been hooked on Hunter S. Thompson ever since. This was HST's first major published work and it essentially put him on the map and provided him with the money to fund the various exploits that he would perform later in life.
The book resulted from a year long assignment w More...

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Jan 20, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

s Thompson aficionados are probably aware Hell's Angels is Hunter's first real foray into the sustained writing that would make us smile or be provoked to call for his head on a platter for the next forty years. Although the text clearly demonstrates that this is not a piece of `gonzo' journalism, as it later came to be known, one can see the outline of where he could be heading in this book on probably the most famous outlaw motorcycle gang in American history. The line between Thompson the rep More...

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Oct 06, 2009

Tpeter rated it:

Not a complete page-turner, and not nearly as brilliant as 'fear and loathing', this is none the less well worth reading, full of captivating hipster-language, and weird insights into the subculture of the Hells Angels.
Hunter S. Thompson is a brilliant investigative journalist both able to give a high-flying sociological analysis of the Angels, and at the same time (quite unlike most sociologists) able to blend in with them - ride bikes, drink and consume drugs with the best... "show More...

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Aug 06, 2009

christa rated it:

Is there anything more delicious than when the infamous writes about the infamous. I'm hardly one of those whacked-out Hunter S. Thompson-ophiles, but "Hell's Angels," his nonfiction-ish account of spending the mid-1960s with the motorcycle club as it revved its way into mainstream media is a total kick.

"Weird as it seems, as this gang of costumed hoodlums converged on Monterey that morning they were on the verge of 'making it big,' as the showbiz people say, and they More...

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Jul 02, 2009

Keeno rated it:

At the time of publication the Hells Angels were a home grown menace that was both real and imagined (and they owe not a little of that infamy to the media as HST aptly points out). They have since evolved from their simple nomad rabble rouser days to being mischievous enough to earn the ire of the F.B.I. along with the rest of the “Big Four” outlaw gangs. In the “Quebec Biker War” between the Angels and the “Rock Machine”, over 150 people were killed which is on par with the biggest Cosa Nostra More...

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Jun 27, 2009

Michael rated it:

My girlfriend had just finished this book, and I had run out of Terry Pratchett (for the moment), so I picked it up. It's good.c Hunter S. Thompson goes well out of his way to rock out with a pack of 60s and 70 Hell's Angels, way out there in Cali. He does a great job of confronting and dispelling a great deal of the rumors of these modern pirates, but at times I think he simply painted them how he wanted to see them.
Thompson does his best to bring out the basic humanity of his subjects, wh More...

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Apr 09, 2009

Libby rated it:

This was a really interesting book about the early history of the Hells Angels MC. I was more interested in Hunter S Thompsons writing style though, I wanted to see what his early stuff was like. It was fairly entertaining, pretty balanced and keenly observant. He did not speak a great deal about his personal involvement though, I would have loved to have heard more details about the times he spent with the club...he did not delve into many personal opinions and appeared to skip over his relatio More...

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Apr 06, 2009

Oren rated it:

My new SF Public Library card was largely put to use last year boning-up on local history of the late 1960s. I'm a big fan of music from that time, but claim no real knowledge of that time. I'm interested since my parents grew up through that decade which came just before my life.

Hunter S. Thompson's voice just connects with my thoughts! My sister got me "The Great Shark Hunt" which I just could not read when I first tried. It was like reading a foreign language, which ma More...

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Dec 28, 2011

Elianne rated it:

I'm not going to claim I'm a Hunter S. Thompson fan by any means. Truth be told, I had a couple of minutes to find a relatively cheap book (thank you, Penguin Classics) to amuse myself with whilst having an unexpected hospital stay; and having a curious interest in bikies, and bikie culture 'Hell's Angels' seemed a suitable choice. This may well strike the contemporary American fiction lovers and gonzo connoisseurs as an unworthy approach to the old Hunter S, but indeed in 'Hell's Angels' I saw More...

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Aug 06, 2010

Tim rated it:

This was Thompson's first published book. From the first to last page, you can see his Gonzo style emerging. Like Jack Kerouac's works, Thompson's writing just sweeps you up and carries you along on a journey that enables you to understand just how complex and poetic life can be. His prose is a cliff jump into a deep river of experience that you just want to read over and over again.

Thompson takes on a number of perspectives in 'Hell's Angels'--from partying with the motorcycle ga More...

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Oct 27, 2011

Joe rated it:

Hell's Angels, is the 1966 debut of Hunter S. Thompson, and this brand new thing called "Gonzo" journalism. I found it very interesting, reading this after all these years, to almost feel like I was there as Thompson, found the first signs of his voice. This is still top-of-the-line reporting in the conventional sense. But it was also not exactly full-emersion, in the gonzo sense, as we know it today. The difference being, that the reporting wasn’t as much about Hunter Thompson, and More...

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Feb 03, 2011

Christopher Rex rated it:

Interesting read. HST was a quality writer throughout his career and it is interesting to note the stylistic changes that evolved throughout his life and this book demonstrates his early talents. I never read "Hell's Angels" despite going through a wide swath of HSTs work over the past 20 years. I guess I never really found the topic one that would interest me. The book is an interesting case-study of investigative journalism in HSTs unique style. Though I found him a bit too symp More...

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Jan 02, 2009

Annie rated it:

Loved this book - Thompson follows the group for a few years and writes about what this group of guys is like. By the end of the book (even though he wrote about some pretty heinous things that they did to people, property, etc.), I felt myself really liking the men who were in Hell's Angels. Not like them like I want to get a beer with them, but I think you know what I mean. I'd like to read more of Thompson's work.

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Jan 26, 2011

Jake rated it:

Who among us, in some secret moments, doesn't want to see society burnt to the ground? What separates us from the Hell's Angels, according to Hunter S. Thompson, is that most of the time we've got other options- where the average outlaw biker has none:

Two dozen gleaming, stripped-down Harleys filled the parking lot of the bar called the El Adobe. The angels were shouting, laughing and drinking beer- paying no attention to two teenaged boys who stood on the fringe of the crowd, looking scared.

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Jan 03, 2012

Brian rated it:

The media latched onto the threat posed by the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang “invading” and “taking over” small towns on their “runs,” and incited public fear and police reaction way out of proportion to the actual threat. This is the thesis that Thompson hammers away at over and over again, and then revisits a few more times just in case it was missed.

It may well be true that the threat was overstated, but the vandalism, theft, and violence that Thompson acknowledges is a regular More...

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Aug 05, 2011

Colin N. rated it:

This is Thompson's expose of the Hell's Angels, written after he spent a year with them in the mid-1960s. It is a pretty good piece of reporting and is significant for being one of the first factually accurate description of the Hell's Angels and the other motorcycle clubs that sprouted up in the years after WWII. (though of course filtered through Thompson's perceptions). The book really sets out to debunk the many myths that existed at the time about the group and excoriate the mainstream m More...

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