"Brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever, Hunter S. Thompson is back with another astonishing volume of private correspondence, the highly anticipated follow-up to THE PROUD HIGHWAY. 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 authors and 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."
"'Brilliant' - Observer
'Vivid, hyperactive, combative, ferociously intelligent and iconoclastic' - Guardian
'Splendidly corrosive' - Independent
The Proud Highway is a literary milestone. The first volume in Hunter S. Thompson's intimate letters begins with a high school essay written in 1955, and takes us through 1967, when the publication of Hell's Angels made the author an international celebrity.
Thompson's prolific and often profound correspondence gives us an unforgettable insight into the world during the Cold War era, as well as an authoritative introduction to the cultural revolution of the sixties. With a vicious eye for detail and rude wit he writes to such luminaries as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Lyndon Johnson and Joan Baez. These letters represent the evolution of the original, a singular voice defying an era of banality, and cements Thompson's reputation as one of the great romantic journalistic figures of our time."
"NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A mind-bending view of the 1992 presidential campaign—in all of its horror, sacrifice, lust, and dubious glory—from the famed political analyst and author of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and Hell’s Angels
“Memorable . . . [Thompson] delivers yet another of his trademark cocktail mixes of unbelievable tales and dark observations about the sausage grind that is the U.S. presidential sweepstakes.”—Los Angeles Daily News
In Better Than Sex, Hunter S. Thompson wanders into the savage vortex of political power to present a groundbreaking and bizarre saga of what happens to campaign junkies behind the scenes of a victorious presidential campaign.
Better Than Sex drags you into Bill Clinton’s America, a world full of fear that stretches from Pennsylvania Avenue to Hollywood to the squalid hills of the Ozarks, where power-crazed monsters like James Carville and George Stephanopoulos seize control of a nation and wallow unashamed in a Palace of Power where the only governing ethic is raw lust. It is an ugly and disillusioning spectacle, one that only the merciful death of Richard M. Nixon—explored here in all its glorious symbolism—could defuse.
Complete with faxes sent to and received by candidate Clinton’s top aides, and 100 percent pure gonzo screeds on Richard Nixon, George Bush, and Oliver North, here is the most true-blue campaign tell-all ever penned by man or beast."
"'A phalanx of motorcycles cam roaring over the hill from the west ... the noise was like a landslide, or a wing of bombers passing over. Even knowing the Angels I couldn't quite handle what I was seeing.'
Huge bikes, filthy denim and an aura of barely contained violence; the Hell's Angels could paralyse whole towns with fear. But how much of that reputation was myth and how much was brutal reality? Only one man could discover the truth about these latter-day barbarians; Hunter S. Thompson, Dr Gonzo himself, the man who saw the fear and loathing at the heart of the American dream. Determined to discover the truth behind the terrifying reputation of these marauding biker gangs, Thompson spent a year on the road with the Angels, documenting his hair-raising experiences with Charger Charley, Big Frank, Little Jesus and the Gimp. Hell's Angels is the hair-raising result: a free-wheeling, impressionistic counter-culture classic that made Hunter S. Thompson's name as the wild man of American writing.
Hunter S. Thompson (1937 - 2005) began writing as a sports columnist in Florida. He has worked on newspapers and magazines, becoming South American correspondent for the National Observer. His novels include: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972 and The Great Shark Hunt.
If you enjoyed Hell's Angels, you might like William S. Burroughs' Junky, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
'Excellent documentary non-fiction'
Time Out
'There are only two adjectives writers care about any more - 'brilliant' and 'outrageous' - and Hunter has a freehold on both of them'
Tom Wolfe
'The first rock-star writer'
Guardian"
"The third volume of the legendary 'Gonzo Papers' recalls high and hideous moments in Hunter S. Thompson's life and career--featuring a new introduction from comedian Tim Heidecker.
With Thompson's trademark insight and passion about the state of American politics and culture, Songs of the Doomed charts the long, strange trip from Kennedy to Quayle in Thompson's freewheeling, inimitable style. Spanning four decades--1950 to 1990--Thompson is at the top of his form while fleeing New York for Puerto Rico, riding with the Hell's Angels, investigating Las Vegas sleaze, grappling with the 'Dukakis problem,' and finally, detailing his infamous lifestyle bust, trial documents, and Fourth Amendment battle with the Law. These tales--often sleazy, brutal, and crude--are only the tip of what Jack Nicholson called 'the most baffling human iceberg of our time.'
Songs of the Doomed is vintage Thompson--a brilliant, brazen, bawdy compilation of the greatest sound bites of Gonzo journalism from the past thirty years."
"‘Most smart people tend to feel queasy when the conversation turns to things like “certain death” and “total failure” and the idea of “a doomed generation”. But not me. I am comfortable with these themes.’
Hunter S. Thompson, celebrated author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, has been writing a weekly column for the San Francisco Examiner for the last two years. Those columns are collected here to offer a chronicle of the adventures of a Generation of Swine.
The incomparable ‘Dr Gonzo’ has journeyed no small distance in search of intelligent life and reports back, instead, on the demented state of current events. He keeps tabs on the 1998 presidential race, quotes from the Bible (reference books in hotel rooms are supplied exclusively by the Gideons) and asks why the President appears to be a hundred and twenty-eight years old.
‘He is working from a dementia that no one in his right mind would want to share. It is the dementia, however, that makes Thompson great’ Playboy
‘His hallucinated vision strikes one as having been, after all, the sanest’ Nelson Algren"
"An indispensable compendium of Hunter S Thompson's best of Gonzo.
Originally published in 1979, The Great Shark Hunt, the first volume of the bestselling 'Gonzo Papers' is Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work. These essays cover Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine, offering brilliant commentary and outrageous humour, in signature Thompson style."
"‘We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive …”’
Hunter S. Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream. Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, the duo engage in a surreal succession of chemically enhanced confrontations with casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans."
"The best, the fastest, the hippest and the most unorthodox account ever published of the US presidential electoral process in all its madness and corruption.
In 1972 Hunter S. Thompson, the creator and king of Gonzo journalism, covered the US presidential campaign for Rolling Stone magazine alongside the establishment newsmen of Washington. The result is a classic piece of subversive reportage and a fantastic ride on the rollercoaster of Hunter’s uniquely savage imagination. In his own words, written years before Watergate: ‘It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.’"
"La obra más enloquecida de Hunter S. Thompson, figura legendaria del nuevo periodismo.
Una acción delirante: así como los caballeros de la Tabla Redonda se lanzaban en pos del Santo Grial envueltos en una armadura de poder sobrenatural, Thompson entró en Las Vegas pertrechado con un arsenal verdaderamente mágico de «nefandas sustancias químicas» en su búsqueda del Sueño Americano. Sus peligrosos enfrentamientos, dopado hasta las cejas, con los empleados de casinos, camareros, policías especializados en narcóticos y demás representantes de la Mayoría Silenciosa segregan un humor alucinado y un clima de terror muy infrecuentes. Porque ésta es la verdadera historia de un hombre que pasó una prolongada temporada en el infierno... y vivió para contarlo.
«Lejos de mí la idea de recomendar al lector drogas, alcohol, violencia y demencia. Pero debo confesar que, sin todo eso, yo no sería nada» (Hunter S. Thompson).
«Una obra cáustica que marcará época y causará sensación. Los dos adjetivos que más les gustan a los escritores son 'brillante' y 'escandaloso', y Thompson hace méritos para ambos» (Tom Wolfe).
«Hunter S. Thompson conectó a la sociedad norteamericana con los problemas que se colaban a través de sus costuras. Convivió hasta mimetizarse con los símbolos de esas dos realidades y les contó a unas y otras que no eran tan distintas» (Fernando González, «Gonzo»).
«El más creativamente loco de los nuevos periodistas... Me entusiasma» (Kurt Vonnegut).
«El mejor libro sobre la década de la droga» (The New York Times Book Review)."
"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."
"Sophie Rois liest eine Auswahl der Gonzo-Briefe Hunter S. Thompsons, die in dem Band 'Die Odyssee eines Outlaw-Journalisten. Gonzo-Briefe 1958-1976' erschienen sind, und sie verleiht dem großen und einem der lustigsten und besessensten Briefeschreiber in der amerikanischen Literatur eine ganz eigene, eine neue, in jedem Fall hinreißende Stimme."
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