Rating: 
Summary: No question about it, it's the best!
Review: Like I mentioned in my review of the CD, I think "Duke" left the verbiage purposefuly vague, so the reader could use their own (maybe "augmented," maybe not) imagination. So let me just say this: SENZAMANWAZZYNEEDS!
Rating:
Summary: If you like Jello, then you will LOVE Fear and loathing!
Review: In was shaving a cat out on the sidewalk, when some guy drove by honking and threw a book at me. I was knocked unconscious upon impact. When I woke up, face down on the concrete, I looked down at the book and It was a fresh copy of Gulliver's Travels!Then I went into my house and read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I laughed and laughed until I cried, and then I made some Jello and accidentaly spilled some on my shirt! Good read!
Rating: 
Summary: Fanaticism and Lunacy In Las Vegas
Review: As often is the case, the getting of the story Thompson was assigned to is more interesting than the story he was assigned to get. This book is no exception. In fact, he tells us very little about the assignments he is supposed to get. With all the hype and hoopla about this book, I was incredibly disappointed. The book to me, seemed like a mediocre conflation of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" and Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" both of which were so far superior to Thompson's book, it is laughable that this book has attained such recognition. If in fact, Thompson had done all the drugs he said he did in that small time frame he would be dead. And chances are, he will tell you he almost was. This is not an example of the "Drug Generation." This is a perfect example of totally irresponsible drug use. Kerouac always had a direction he was going in, even if it changed from hour to hour or even minute to minute. But Thompson has zero direction in this book, he just keeps drinking, downing LSD, Mescaline, ether, etc., until he and his Samoan attorney are literally non-ambulatory. In Wolfe's book, he was really there, with Kesey and Maynard Ferguson and so many documented others. He really was in Shea Stadium for the final Beatles show. Thompson, was just in a total self-induced drug paroxysm through the whole book. I am amazed he could even remember enough to make it into a book. I found the book amusing, but certainly NOT one that would have lasting value as a real representation of how we lived THEN.
Rating: 
Summary: WOW
Review: I didn't now what to expect when I started ready the book but I was hooked from the first page. I love Thompson's style of writing it's easy to read, easy to understand, blunt, and I can imagine what's going on as if i was there. I also found it to be very educational. I t taught me things about drugs, Las Vegas, personalities, and life in general. I would recomend this book to anyone with an open mind. It's so thrilling that it has inspired me to take a trip to Vegas, again!!! I have one word: enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Screaming jibberish
Review: "Eyes glazed insanely behind tiny gold rim greaser shades." So goes one of my favorite lines in a book recommended to me by a buddy named Douglas Mallach (we call him Doug Mallach for short), an Irish name to be sure and thus the literary sensibility. For anybody who hasn't read Hunter's famous story of excess and depravity in the once desolate and simultaneously luxurious oddity known as Las Vegas, this is a quick read and one perfectly suited for road trips and travel. Though be careful if you're flying by air. Others will hear you laugh out loud.
In spite of its wit and borderline sanity, the author has one eye on history. As my friend Doug pointed out, he's writing at the time when liberalism in this country hit its "high water mark." There's a sensitivity to the forces behind culture that moves this book as much as its characters'
ridiculous predicaments.
Rating:
Summary: fear and loathing in las vegas
Review: great book, it keeps you reading and wanting for more. i liked it from start to finish. way better than the movie. it is the perfect book to read when you are bored or for school. highly recomended!!!
Rating:
Summary: one the great books of the 20th century
Review: As with the movie, many people make the same mistake about the book and get wierded out by the heavy drug content into believing that it is about drug abuse. But that's not the case. The book is not about drugs, violence, sex, or the love generation, it is about something much more basic, as the subtitle says, it is about "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream". That is some kind of sense of righteous destiny in a place where good always triumphs over evil and nice guys finish first. The book is about that, or rather the realizations that it's not true: the death of The American Dream. Basically, most folks believe that it is their right -- as long as they aren't hurting anybody else... they pretty much should be allowed to do what ever the heck they want to do, even if, and maybe especially if... the things they want to do harm themselves. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, whose alter ego basically is our main protagonist, writes this book: Raoul Duke. The book was what Uncle Duke saw as a failed attempt at Gonzo Journalism... that had at its heart that sometimes the best truth is encased in fiction. Of course, most fiction really is written as something along those lines... an author trying to find meaning in a crazy mixed up world. It is just that here we find an author more self conscious of this fact than other writers we may be more familiar with. Other books that are similar in approach to this book are, in the mainstream "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe and "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. But I would also point at SF's "The Man in the High Castle" by Phil Dick and "The Book of Skulls" by Robert Silverberg, or even Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman". The American dream either died somewhere along the way or did it simply never really existed at all, and we are somehow just mourning its passing like a bunch of drug crazed wacko's in the same way lots of other folks on a long strange religious trip mourned the death of a flat earth? Many of us believed in The American Dream once, we were raised to believe in it. But then something happened... something bad? Nixon took office and started defecating on the Constitution? Maybe we just woke up -- grew up? Who the heck knows really, because I doubt we really ever understood just what we believed in at the time. To quote a line from the book (from the wave speech): "History is hard to know, because of all the hired bulls*, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time-and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened." The book is in some kind of way, an examination of ourselves... in the way you sometimes hear that an unexamined life is not worth living... the problem is that, when we look deep into the inner core being of ourselves...sometimes we find nothing. Which leads to the "paradoxically benevolent BS" -- "the desperate assumption that somebody-or at least some force-is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel". Which is why, in my opinion, a lot of people don't like or understand this tale. They are uncomfortable thinking about themselves in ways where the conclusion isn't clear and succinct. They want to believe they are "holding on to life firmly by the handle". They want to live in a world where everything makes sense. Of course, they are wrong. Or maybe, in the unkindest cut of all, they are perfectly correct. The world does make sense - and airplanes are supposed to crash into tall building and thousands must die in order to feed the egos of the small groups of evil men who run the world. These are scary places and times, ones where you don't need drugs or alcohol to be scared. But then maybe only the truly sane are getting whacked out on acid and heroin.
Rating:
Summary: Better than 5 stars
Review: After watching the movie several times and it never getting old, tired, or worn out, I decided to pick up this wonderful piece of literacy and find out what the father of Gonzo Journalism was all about. My brother told me several things that he had known about the movie and the book and how the whole story came to be. I found this entire ?journey? was very intense and wonderful at the same time. The drug use was extreme and didn?t fade out for one moment. The book was a perfect replica of the movie. The entire time that I was reading the book I could sit and picture every single scene of the movie one after the other. It made the book that much more enjoyable for myself. There was never a dull moment in the book/movie. A great book that describes the era that it was written in perfectly. That?s how I would describe this book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that is in the search of an easy read, but a great read. It has a ton of hilarious moments that keep the book flowing nicely. Nothing bad can possibly be said about this book. It?s a wonderfully written book by a wonderful author. This book has made me want to pick up some of Thompson?s other great books and I hope that it has the same impact on you.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: I must say that i am not much of an avid reader. In fact the only book i had ever enjoyed before this was Animal farm by George orwell. Then my friend who isnt much of a reader either told me i should just try this. So i did. I couldnt stop reading this. It is just fantastic. It is humouros in the aspect as its not staged it is all and you think about it and just see the humor in it. Hunter S Thompson is a supreme doctor of journalism. I would recommend this to anyone even if they arent into this type of thing.
Rating:
Summary: Satire of Consumer America
Review: This is a hilarious road trip that satires the excesses of consumerism and the need for the Jerry Springer-like intoxicating sensory overload resulting from our desperation to fill the spiritual vacuum created by our materialistic/capitalist/sell-sell-sell-down-your-throat/endless marketing assault society. Here's a passage that sums this American circus-like atmosphere: 'Psychedelics are almost irrelevant in a town where you can wander into a casino any time of the day or night and witness the curcifixion of a gorilla -- on a flaming neon cross that suddenly turns into a pinwheel, spinning the beast around in wild circles above the crowded gambling action.' This book is truly a classic -- and it speaks volumes about what America as a whole has become. I promise you'll laugh loudly! Also recommended: WILL@epicqwest.com by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
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