Audiobooks by Hunter S. Thompson

A Rare Recording of Hunter S. Thompson Audiobook

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 - February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement, a style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972). The following is from a 1975 interview on gonzo journalism.

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Hunter S. Thompson (Narrator)

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Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968–1976

This astonishing volume of private correspondence, a critically acclaimed follow-up to The Proud Highway, shows Hunter S. Thompson as brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever. When that first book of letters appeared in 1997, Time pronounced it “deliriously entertaining,” Rolling Stone called it “brilliant beyond description,” and the New York Times celebrated its “wicked humor and bracing political conviction.” Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; twisting political reporting to new heights for Rolling Stone; and making sense of it all in the landmark Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. To read Thompson’s dispatches from these years—addressed to the author’s friends, enemies, editors, and creditors and such notables as Jimmy Carter, Tom Wolfe, and Kurt Vonnegut—is to read a raw, revolutionary eyewitness account of one of the most exciting and pivotal eras in American history. “A vital, deliriously erratic force in journalism…Reading Hunter Thompson is like using gasoline for aftershave—bracing…These untidy letters are welcome, showing us as they do a great American original in his lair.”—New York Times Book Review

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

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The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955–1967

Here, for the first time, is the private and most intimate correspondence of one of America’s most influential and incisive journalists—Hunter S. Thompson. In letters to a who’s who of luminaries, from Norman Mailer to Charles Kuralt, Tom Wolfe to Lyndon Johnson, William Styron to Joan Baez—not to mention his mother, the NRA, and a chain of newspaper editors—Thompson vividly catches the tenor of the times in 1960s America and channels it all through his own razor-sharp perspective. Passionate in their admiration, merciless in their scorn, and never anything less than fascinating, the dispatches of The Proud Highway offer an unprecedented and penetrating gaze into the evolution of the most outrageous raconteur/provocateur ever to assault a typewriter. “Proud Highway proves as meaty as most bios on Thompson—and way more fun.”—Entertainment Weekly

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

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The Curse of Lono

This enormously eccentric book takes listeners on a crazy journey with renowned gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The Curse of Lono is to Hawaii what Fear and Loathing was to Las Vegas: the crazy tales of a journalist’s “coverage” of a news event that ends up being a wild ride to the dark side of Americana. Originally published in 1983, The Curse of Lono features all of the zany, hallucinogenic wordplay for which Hunter S. Thompson became known and loved. This curious book, considered an oddity among Hunter’s oeuvre, is a widely sought-after treasure. “A riotous romp that is best read with a suspension of disbelief in spite of its nonfiction tag…There were times when it made me laugh out loud, and it was entertaining throughout. If you are looking for a nonsensical good farce, then this is the book for you.”—Examiner.com

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

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Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's

Generation of Swine, the second volume of the legendary Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's bestselling "Gonzo Papers," was first published in 1988 and is now back in print. Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best -- covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN -- 24 hours of mainline news. Showcasing his inimitable talent for social and political analysis, Generation of Swine is vintage Thompson -- eerily prescient, incisive, and enduring.

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling "Gonzo Papers" is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style. Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed "gonzo" -- "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful '60s and '70s.

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Kingdom of Fear

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Screwjack

They will not be disappointed. His notorious Screwjack is as salacious, unsettling, and brutally lyrical as it has been rumored to be since the private printing in 1991 of three hundred fine collectors' copies and twenty-six leather-bound presentation copies. Only the first of the three pieces included here -- "Mescalito," published in Thompson's 1990 collection Songs of the Doomed -- has been available to the public, making the trade edition of Screwjack a major publishing event. "We live in a jungle of pending disasters," Thompson warns in "Mescalito," a chronicle of his first mescaline experience and what it sparked in him while he was alone in an L.A. hotel room in February 1969 -- including a bout of paranoia that would have made most people just scream no, once and for all. But for Thompson, along with the downside came a burst of creativity too powerful to ignore. The result is a poetic, perceptive, and wildly funny stream-of-consciousness take on 1969 America as only Hunter S. Thompson could see it. Screwjack just gets weirder with its second offering, "Death of a Poet." As Thompson describes this trailer-park confrontation with the dark side of a deservingly doomed friend: "Whoops, I thought. Welcome to the night train." The heart of the collection lies in its final, title piece, an unnaturally poignant love story. What makes the romantic tale "Screwjack" so touching, for all its queerness, is the aching melancholy in its depiction of the modern man's burden: that ""we are doomed. Mama has gone off to Real Estate School ...and after that maybe even to Law School. We will never see her again." Ostensibly written by Raoul Duke, "Screwjack" begins with an editor's note explaining of Thompson's alter ego that ""the first few lines contain no warning of the madness and fear and lust that came more and more to plague him and dominate his life...." "I am guilty, Lord," Thompson writes, "but I am also a lover -- and I am one of your best people, as you know; and yea tho I have walked in many strange shadows and acted crazy from time to time and even drooled on many High Priests, I have not been an embarrassment to you...." Nor has Hunter S. Thompson been to American literature. Quite the contrary: What the legendary Gonzo journalist proves with Screwjack is just how brilliant a prose stylist he really is, amid all the hilarity. As Thompson puts it in his introduction, the three stories here "build like Bolero to a faster & wilder climax that will drag the reader relentlessly up a hill, & then drop him off a cliff....That is the Desired Effect".

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail '72

An iconic and controversial figure in American literature, Hunter S. Thompson displayed a brilliance that forever changed journalism. Thompson's follow-up to The Proud Highway, this second volume of private, never-before-published letters spans the years 1968 through 1976. Addressed to such luminaries as Tom Wolfe, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jimmy Carter, this incisive collection showcases Thompson's raw and starkly honest thoughts on a pivotal era in U.S. history.

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Hey Rube: Blood Sport, The Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness

New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson is known for such groundbreaking works as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. A provocative collection of rants and reflections from Thompson's columns at ESPN.com, Hey Rube offers outrageously brilliant insight on topics ranging from the 2000 election to his unconventional take on professional sports ("eliminate the pitcher" to improve Major League Baseball).

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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Hell's Angels

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator)

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The Rum Diary: A Novel

Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson's Fear and Loathing books.

Hunter S. Thompson (Author), Christopher Lane (Narrator)

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