The first volume in Hunter S. Thompson’s bestselling Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, featuring a new introduction from award-winning author and editor John Jeremiah Sullivan. 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.
The second volume of the legendary “Gonzo Papers” collects columns from Hunter S. Thompson’s 1980s tenure at the San Francisco Examiner —featuring a new introduction by musician and artist Alison Mosshart. Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Hunter S. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best: covering emblematic events such as the 1987–1988 presidential campaign; detailing the GOP’s obsession with drugs and drug abuse; and capturing momentous social phenomena such as the rise of 24 hour-TV news. Showcasing Thompson’s inimitable talent for social and political analysis, Generation of Swine is eerily prescient, incisive, and enduring.
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.