Rating: 
Summary: Some of the funniest reading ever...
Review: ...'course you'll have to work for it. This is a massive book that in my opinion isn't meant to be plowed through, but rather enjoyed from time to time. A complition of his letters written over a decade or so (during his rise from a relatively obscure journalist/writer to cult hero) most every letter is interesting in one way or another, some are so funny that you'll be laughing about them for days. HST's humor is unmatched in my opinion by any writer I've read. This book is an extraordinarily private, very insightful, often hilarious glimpse into one of America's most interesting social figures. Enjoy...
Rating:
Summary: Some of the funniest reading ever...
Review: ...'course you'll have to work for it. This is a massive book that in my opinion isn't meant to be plowed through, but rather enjoyed from time to time. A complition of his letters written over a decade or so (during his rise from a relatively obscure journalist/writer to cult hero) most every letter is interesting in one way or another, some are so funny that you'll be laughing about them for days. HST's humor is unmatched in my opinion by any writer I've read. This book is an extraordinarily private, very insightful, often hilarious glimpse into one of America's most interesting social figures. Enjoy...
Rating: 
Summary: A must read
Review: After reading "The Proud Highway" it's hard to believe there is so much fresh material still to be published. Thompson is a Great American, and a Great Writer. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Everyone who wants to know about the 60's must read "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." " Fear and Loathing in America" puts in perspective Thompson's best as well as what has happened to the American dream. The only weak point of this book is the poor footnotes. They are tediously obvious to anyone who has been alive the past 20 years. This is a small flaw in a great effort. Enjoy!!!
Rating:
Summary: FEAR & LAOTHING IN AMERICA
Review: An incredible tome of hysterical, outrageous, entertaining, historically important correspondence! I think I am in love with Dr. Thompson........
Rating: 
Summary: On Jackets, Hard Work, and Jann
Review: As a big fan of Hunter's I especially enjoyed Volume I in this series, I found this edition much less satisfying. The problems with it lie chiefly in editor Brinkley's selection of material and his approach to assembling it. Thompson's laundry list likely makes more compelling reading than many scribes' magnum opuses (opii? opum?), it's true, but too many of the pieces here drown the reader in the minutae of logistical details involved in putting a book together. The extensive correspondence between Random House Editor Jim Silberman and Hunter, for example, gets awfully repetitive after a while, with Hunter scrambling to find new ways to explain his writer's block. And the letters of complaint about his jacket are not very interesting; and the letters to Wenner become tedious early on. One thing I noticed in this volume versus the last is a tendency to run on at the mouth and stray from the (often vital) subject at hand -- illustrating what must have been the pivotal role of the editor in the heyday of Hunter's excellent 70's work. Finally, Brinkley's selections are odd and his annotations often bizarre. Thompson will mention some individual mentioned in passing a hundred pages ago and we scratch our heads and wonder who it is he's talking about, yet a passing reference to Hitler is footnoted with a helpful explanation of who Hitler was!! All in all this book has a more slapped-together feel, and perhaps it's because Thompson at this point was more heavily into drugs an liquor, but I found his earlier correspondence more arresting and interesting.
Rating:
Summary: The Unwitting Autobiography...
Review: Considering there are at least 5 biographies floating around about Hunter S. Thompson, and he doesn't seem the type to write an autobiography, this is the closest thing we will ever get. Picking up where Volume I left off, Fear and Loathing in America is a complete reversal of fortune from its predecessor. Whereas Volume I documented the lament and poverty of Thompson as a young, struggling writer, dealing with the rigors of hustling a career in journalism or literature without working a "real job"--this volume covers Thompson in his shining glory years. Fresh off the success of Hells Angels, he conquers with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Not only that, but it covers everything in-between, providing a much-needed counterpoint to the extreme surreal elements of his gonzo journalism, showing us the facts that exists outside the books and the articles. Thompson almost always portrays himself as the smirking, all-knowing, invulnerable watcher of things. Even when writing from his own point of view, he becomes the omniscient narrator and the cruel god watching over the world he is describing. Very rarely does he get really personal and revealing in his writing, nor does he need to. This volume is filled with personal correspondence, journalistic entries about Thompson's life and times. And his writing here is just as solid as it is in any of his books. His ability to bend language and make it bark and snarl at the end of his leash is what makes Thompson an irreplacable American writer, and a perfect vehicle to have documented the turbulence of the last 4 decades. This volume of letters is the perfect companion to the flash and bang of his books, giving us an altogether different point of view of Thompson's life and lets us make our own conclusions about how much life imitates art and helps us realize that it works the other way 'round as well.
Rating:
Summary: Fear and Loathing
Review: Contrary to popular belief Mr. Thompson appears an affable enough fellow, though I would never stop by for a visit without calling first. I would normally give a work such as this 4 stars ****; however I choose to give it 5 stars *****; due to the fact that Mr. Thompson is a rabid Zevon fan, thus the additional star.
Rating:
Summary: sweet jesus
Review: Damn! Seriously folks, what a blast of nutritional yeast and butter. I got this book at 9 am and just now finished it(midnight). Perfect transition between first book of letters and Thompson of today. My dad once told me that the word 'niggler' was the only known anagram of my last name. I didn't believe him until I figured it out for myself. Damn! figure it out for yourself and read this book. His correspondence with Jimmy Carter couldn't be any more gratifying.
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Summary: I again can not think of a title
Review: Fear and Loathing in America is mainly for hardcore fans or people who after reading Fear and loathing in Las Vegas wanted to know what Thompson is really like and if all the strange myths and terrible legends they heard about Thompson are true or not, I myself am a big fan of Thompson and I enjoy this book quite a lot, I did not like it at the beginning, for two months is stood their on my bookshelf and one day, I gave it another go and I loved it, I was so surprised at how much I liked it, these days, I pick it up to a random page and read it. Long live Dr. Thompson
Rating: 
Summary: Thompson-if you were so Gonzo, why the Photocopied letters?
Review: From The Monitor Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, a semi-biographical book, is unrefined tedium consisting mostly of unrequited personal correspondence, to wit: an amalgamation of rambled letters sans response during an eight-year span, 1968-1976, in the life of Hunter S. Thompson. This book is conceptually flawed in its publisher's-literally-clearinghouse mentality of profiteering: selling "Hunter S. Thompson" without tilting at integrity. What editor Douglas Brinkley has done, in effect, is organize Thompson's e-mail outbox by date, print them, slap on a cover and insert a suppressed envy/spite congratulatory forward by David Halberstram. The next logical step was stamping on it, an adhesive price tag. Fear and Loathing in America has accomplished nothing, save slake the palates of Fear-and-Loathing-junkie-sponges who fiend for everything and anything Thompson. Thompson, who is infamous/famous for his "Gonzo" journalism, the Visigoth-resistant, in-the-trenches-to-write-and-write-I-will attitude, has failed miserably. Fear and Loathing in America is an anecdote after years of swine success. Thompson seems to have gone to the Darkside: sellout commercialism. At no point in Fear and Loathing in America does the book make an effort. The letters, individually, from Thompson are to his mother, strange bedfellow Oscar Acosta-the assumed Samoan attorney character in Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey in the Heart of the American Dream, his various editors and publishers, etc... These letters are interesting in a voyeuristic sense and for the politic/journalism pundits on, perhaps, a nostalgic-reminiscence level, but otherwise platitude. The quality of Fear and Loathing is its humanization of anti-heroified Thompson. It showcases his struggles and emotions unmolested, uncut, and unrevised. Fear and Loathing can be inspirational in this regard as encouragement for felled and flailing authors slumming to make it in the seemingly more-sinister-than-execution, "publish or perish" world. Thompson's letters to his brother regarding tuition and to The Alaskan Sleeping Bag CO regarding a returned "Alaska Hunting Coat" which, according to Thompson looked nothing like the picture in the catalogue, are simply not worth reading. Despite the authorship and book jacket featuring a 1960s Thompson, this book reads nothing like the picture. Disappointing at best, Fear and Loathing in America is hopefully a brief stutter before Thompson decides to say something profound as he has done with a furious and frothing pen in the past.
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