Fear and Loathing in America : The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist
by Hunter S. Thompson
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Read in April, 2008
June 18, 1973
Woody Creek, CO
John Holdorf
AL Johnson Library
Union College
Cranford, NJ 07016
Dear John:
Bill Greider of the Washington Post has pulled himself together long enough to forward (to me) your letter of 5/25... and he also sent along a copy of his letter to you, in re: The Meaning of the Word "Cazart".
Surprising as it might seem to those of us in The Trade, as it were, Bill's definition of the word is essentially correct. His dim Appalachian background h...more
Woody Creek, CO
John Holdorf
AL Johnson Library
Union College
Cranford, NJ 07016
Dear John:
Bill Greider of the Washington Post has pulled himself together long enough to forward (to me) your letter of 5/25... and he also sent along a copy of his letter to you, in re: The Meaning of the Word "Cazart".
Surprising as it might seem to those of us in The Trade, as it were, Bill's definition of the word is essentially correct. His dim Appalachian background h...more
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recommends it for:
writers and miscreants
This book is likely to always be on my "Currently Reading" shelf since I randomly pick it up and read excerpts whenever I am in the mood for a rant, a raving tirade pointed seemingly haphazardly at whomever should happen to cross paths with the mercurial and sharp tongued Hunter S. Thompson.
Basically this is a collection of correspondences between Thompson and a whole entourage of characters from book publishers and magazine editors, personal friends, TV station executives, newspaper...more
Basically this is a collection of correspondences between Thompson and a whole entourage of characters from book publishers and magazine editors, personal friends, TV station executives, newspaper...more
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The multi-volume collection of letters is an unexpected gift for those who love HST. Perhaps not every single letter in the set is attention grabbing, but take the stop and shop method and read what you want. His correspondence with childhood friends, autors, enemies, and politicians among others is exciting, insightful, hilarious and sometimes just depressing.
I count the fear and loathing books among the best I have ever read but these hold a very high place on the totem pole for me, not j...more
I count the fear and loathing books among the best I have ever read but these hold a very high place on the totem pole for me, not j...more
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Read in August, 2000
recommends it for:
legions of bad bloggers
Collected letters of HST from 1967 to 1976. Very funny stuff. He takes aim at the usual targets, Nixon, greed, etc etc as well as many savage and outlandish threats directed at everyone from his old "friend", the long-suffering Ralph Steadman, to the operator of the local Colorado Tv station. Hunter s. Thompson was truly a one-of-a-kind human being.
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Read in September, 2007
Perhaps not as intimate or telling as Proud Highway-- still a blast. At this stage, HST had fine tuned his style and persona and the first person tales of guns, explosives, the 68 democratic convention and the flipped-out lunacy of the late 60's/ early 70's make for a very compelling read. I found it facinating to read how calculated his plans for Fear & Loathing in Las vegas were.
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Read in December, 2006
Madness...pure maddening genius.
This is nothing more than a collection of letters Thompson wrote throughout his life to various people and organizations, ranging from the Coke-a-Cola bottling company to former president (and Thompson's arch-nemesis) Richard Nixon. A must for anyone who is looking to dig deeper into the mind of the gonzo master.
This is nothing more than a collection of letters Thompson wrote throughout his life to various people and organizations, ranging from the Coke-a-Cola bottling company to former president (and Thompson's arch-nemesis) Richard Nixon. A must for anyone who is looking to dig deeper into the mind of the gonzo master.
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Shows the breadth of Hunter's reading and learning. Like many of his generation he started out following Fitzgerald. I am extremely humbled that a guy that I used to work with in a funky used bookstore edited this book and is now a bigwig in historical studies. I have to put down the crackpipe!
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
other HST fanatics
I didn't love this one as much as the first volume of letters, I think mostly because it focuses so much on politics from the 1970s that I don't know much about. I was surprised to see how intimate Thompson was with people such as George McGovern and Jimmy Carter...the man never ceases to amaze.
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Read in January, 2002
Thompson is one of those people that I always feel better just knowing they are (or were) out there; being original, fierce, eccentric, extraordinarily brilliant and the hell with everyone else. Freak power!
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
People who read on the John
The letters are longer in this one; I'm assuming they get better as time goes on, but so far I'm not as impressed as I was with the first volume. I want more looney letters to strangers/celebrities/politicos.
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Read in January, 2004
Maaan, I just can't get into non-fiction. I enjoyed reading this when I was actually reading it, but when I put it down, I forgot about it. Balls on me for never getting very far into this.
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Raw Thompson. A collection of letters through the 60' and 70's . A inside look down a paranoid-freakpower-genius-comic path and what others had to say about him as well.
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Read in September, 2007
I learned what it's like to be a working journalist. I also became convinced that I need to write more letters. How amazing to have catalogued a life.
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Read in March, 2005
He was such a brilliant writer, very clever and humorous. The landscapes divulged in his writings, coming out of his head were just so trippy. R.I.P.
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freaky way of learning about US history in the 60s/70s - and realizing that there are some people out there that are more crazy than you are.
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Read in January, 2003
"Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to his opponent as "my long-haired opponent", as the Republican candidate had a crew cut."
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Read in January, 2007
For fans only; provides exceptional insight to Hunter S. Thompson's best years via personal correspondence.
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Read in March, 2008
He's the doctor of Journalism. Good insight on his thoughts outside his wild-eyed, self-made genre.
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Read in January, 2007
Mostly a collection of letters written to various people throughout Dr. Thompsons life.
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If you're into either visiting or re-visiting those days, he's the guide to take.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.99 (511 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 4.00 (482 ratings) number of reviews: 27popular shelves
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quote
""I'm sure I must have sounded like a fool and a borderline psychotic most of that year, when I talked to people who thought they knew who and where they were at the time ... but looking back, I see that if I wasn't Right, at least I wasn't Wrong, and in that context I was forced to learn from my confusion ... which took awhile, and there's still no proof that what I finally learned was Right, but there's not a hell of a lot of evidence to show that I'm Wrong either.""
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