Rating: 
Summary: Surfin' USA
Review: History sure, yeah yeah. As if it's over. What can you say about a guy who ends a piece -- on ESPN.com no less, two weeks ago -- with this gratuitous aside: "And the whole Bush family, from Texas, should be boiled in poison oil." What can you say except keep it coming, Doc."...you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost *see* the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." So wrote HST in Fear and Loathing, part the first. Except that it never really broke. Never really rolled back. He said it never got weird enough for him. But it will. Believe it. And it's coming in like a king-hell tsunami. As we say out here in the wild and wooly world-wide west: Yee-hah!
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes choppy, but it is also brilliant like HST
Review: Hunter S. Thompson's book here is really a collection of letters he wrote to various people, some in the literary business, to friends, family, some fans, etc. On how much you like the book depends on how you follow the letters' paths, but Thompson die hards (like myself) will find some interest here, in particular with his correspondence with Oscar "Dr. Gonzo" Zeta-Acosta with his letters also included making their segments worth the buy alone.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes choppy, but it is also brilliant like HST
Review: Hunter S. Thompson's book here is really a collection of letters he wrote to various people, some in the literary business, to friends, family, some fans, etc. On how much you like the book depends on how you follow the letters' paths, but Thompson die hards (like myself) will find some interest here, in particular with his correspondence with Oscar "Dr. Gonzo" Zeta-Acosta with his letters also included making their segments worth the buy alone.
Rating:
Summary: fear and loathing in las vegas
Review: Hunter S.Thompson is brilliant. I don't think people realize how creative and crazy this man really is. All of his books are pure genius. Conservative people stay far away and why not, these books aren't for you. Anyone with wit like this is a gift to the open minded literary world. Read this book and I guarantee you'll be looking for more. Easy and fun to read. God's mercy on you swine!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: fear and loathing in las vegas
Review: Hunter S.Thompson is brilliant. I don't think people realize how creative and crazy this man really is. All of his books are pure genius. Conservative people stay far away and why not, these books aren't for you. Anyone with wit like this is a gift to the open minded literary world. Read this book and I guarantee you'll be looking for more. Easy and fun to read. God's mercy on you swine!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Hunter Thompson's letters
Review: I am really a new fan of Hunter Thompson. His work is truely unique and inspiring. He is a man that can write pure political poetry while under the influence of different drugs (one at a time or multiple). The point is not to judge him because of his unique behavior - but to actually be open minded and listen to what a fellow American has to say. His words and mind are sharp, brutal, and to the point. If you can't relate to well with reality, well who knows? You might still like the works of Hunter Thompson. This particular book is a collection of his letters he sent to various people relating to his world or the polical spectrum. It really is exciting to see the moral/political combat of the American people against a raging machine (the US conservative government). I recommend this book to anyone who is researching the turbulent times of the 60's and 70's. By the way, I am a "Conservative Republican" and I still love his work! Go figure.
Rating:
Summary: Required high school reading
Review: I have been strangely influenced by this man since first picking up _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ in my early teens. I grew up sheltered as a farm boy, and HST introduced me in a very tangible way to the dark underbelly of Americana. By the time David Lynch's film came along, I was no longer shocked by the whole rotten, weird world they portrayed. _Hell's Angels_ is a brilliant piece of documentary book writing and sociology as well as incisive commentary about our culture. HST, despite his rampant debauchery and drug use, is one of the clearest political thinkers out there. He was right about Vietnam before anyone listened. He was on to Nixon and his crooked cronies long before anyone cared. I have yearned in these strange and treacherous times for more clear criticism, for some explanation, for some straight-talking about the sick and twisted nest of snakes that's holed-up in Washington now... but, pending that, this book will do nicely. HST's correspondence shows the near-manic nature of his affair with written words. This collection gives us a picture of how he tosses off notes to friends and enemies alike, bantering, raving, ranting mainly to himself as a part of the process of sorting out his works-in-progress. Reading this has made me mindful of the value of correspondence, and my relation to it. It is revelatory and insightful, fast-paced and fun. I recommend this to any HST fan who wants to learn more about the vague personality we seem to have only so far caught glimpses of through his collected works.
Rating:
Summary: God of Gonzo!
Review: I have been strangely influenced by this man since first picking up _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ in my early teens. I grew up sheltered as a farm boy, and HST introduced me in a very tangible way to the dark underbelly of Americana. By the time David Lynch's film came along, I was no longer shocked by the whole rotten, weird world they portrayed. _Hell's Angels_ is a brilliant piece of documentary book writing and sociology as well as incisive commentary about our culture. HST, despite his rampant debauchery and drug use, is one of the clearest political thinkers out there. He was right about Vietnam before anyone listened. He was on to Nixon and his crooked cronies long before anyone cared. I have yearned in these strange and treacherous times for more clear criticism, for some explanation, for some straight-talking about the sick and twisted nest of snakes that's holed-up in Washington now... but, pending that, this book will do nicely. HST's correspondence shows the near-manic nature of his affair with written words. This collection gives us a picture of how he tosses off notes to friends and enemies alike, bantering, raving, ranting mainly to himself as a part of the process of sorting out his works-in-progress. Reading this has made me mindful of the value of correspondence, and my relation to it. It is revelatory and insightful, fast-paced and fun. I recommend this to any HST fan who wants to learn more about the vague personality we seem to have only so far caught glimpses of through his collected works.
Rating:
Summary: insight into some of americas most interesting years
Review: i recently picked this up, having loved the first volume of letters. i've been reading thompson for many years, and thoroughly enjoyed his political writings about 70s politics. this book is an excellent complement to anyone who really digs into his work, especially around watergate and the carter campaign. its an insight into the writer more than the times. unfortunately it lacks the impact of the first volume. thompson slips into his angry self over wenner's fumbles with thompson in vietnam. thompson bickers back and forth with acosta. while in some spots it gets a bit tiresome, and you wish you had more insight into the watergate hearings, a gem like a letter from jimmy carter will come across and you'll smile. reccomended for the thompson-of-the-70's fan, back when RS was at its prime and thompson was heading into oblivion.
Rating: 
Summary: More caustic ranting & opinions
Review: I was a big fan of volume 1 of his letters- it was new and fresh and unlike anything I had read before. It seems as Hunter ages he sours rather than mellows, which for someone of his ilk isn't surprising. However it doesn't always make it for compelling reading either. He is so proud of his opinions, so righteous, with each letter trying to outdo the previous it gets like a one joke movie.
I also wish he would write what he knows and leave out the letters with personal opinions that aren't relevant, only there to wound and lift his pedestal a little higher. Specifically his anti-Christian tirade on page 55 in a letter to a reader of his remarkable "Hells Angels". Hunter explains that the Angels had no attitude toward Christianity, fine, he knows. However, not enough just to report, he puts down the pen and picks up his sword and writes, ". . . they (the Angels) have been spared the millstone of one of history's greatest lies." Really? Why? Couldn't leave it at just answering the question? Ego rules over reason again.
Read his first collection, its fresher and energetic. This collection is like visiting with a bitter old man who believes his opinions on everything are "breaking news".
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