About this title: '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, so terrible was their reputation. 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 Stockton Thompson, Dr Gonzo himself, the man who saw the fear and loathing in the ...
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Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books, New York, NY USA
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780345248251ISBN:0345248252
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. some wear on the cover; subtle water damage; but an unmarked good reading copy. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: 1st Edition 16TH Printing PB
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780345275981ISBN:0345275985
Description: Very Good+ No Jacket Issued. Book is in Very Good+ condition; minor corner bumping and slight exterior scuffing of black cover, with slight reading creasing of spine/hinge and slight, expected yellowing of pages. Otherwise, book is tight, square, glossy and text unmarked. USPS Delivery Confirmation included. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 1970
ISBN-13:9780345018533ISBN:0345018532
Description: Good. General Used Condiiton. Minor Defects may Exist. Minimal Shelf wear. Text may contain minor marking or highlighting, Binding Tight. Previous owners name or bookplate may be present. All domestic items shipped within 24 hours. International orders shipped within 72 hours. Customer Service isn't just a motto for us, its a way of life. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Date Published: 1970
ISBN-13:9780140028010ISBN:0140028013
Description: Acceptable. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books, Middlesex (Middx) England
Date Published: 1971
Description: Good+ 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. 284 pp. Cover lightly rubbed with front corner creases; interior is immaculate, though slightly sunned. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantin BOOKS, New York CITY
Date Published: 1972
Description: Good. Mass Market Paperback Pages are clean but yellowed from age. Binding is tight and shows little signs of creasing. A great read for those who love the idea of the open road and are fasinated by this outlaw motorcycle gang. read more
Description: Reader copy. Paperback. cover and corner wear. yellowed pages. creased covers. corners are torn off cover. tiny piece missing from cover edge. bent pages. tears on spine. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780140285550ISBN:0140285555
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Description: NY: Ballantine, 1975. 348 pages. Reprint. Mass Market paperback. Ballantine # 24825. Near Fine. Covers lightly rubbed. ISBN: 0345248252 Thompson rode with the Hell's Angels outlaw motocycle gang for a year, earning the title as their 'writer in residence. ' The Gonzo journalist 'is loose again, running fast and loud, like a burst of dirty thunder'. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 1980-05-12
ISBN-13:9780345292384ISBN:0345292383
Description: Very Good Plus. No jacket. Tight, clean, flat, square and sharp book. Pages toned. Corners creased. Slight storage odor, not mildew. read more
Edition: Book Club Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1967
Description: Good+ in Good+ dust jacket. Some fraying to edges of dustjacket. Some discoloration to some pages of book. Previous owner's name on inside front cover.; 278 pages. read more
Edition: Later Printing
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books, New York
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780345301130ISBN:0345301137
Description: Very Good. 348 pp. Light edge and corner wear with some minor creasing on the spine; no interior markings. The Chapters are: Roll Em Boys; The Making of the Menace 1965; The Hoodlum Circus and the Statutory Rape of Bass Lake; and The Dope Cabala and a Wall of Fire. read more
Description: Acceptable. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780140285550ISBN:0140285555
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 336 pages. (336 pages) huge bikes, filthy denim and an aura of barely contained violence; the hell's angels could paralyse whole towns with fear, so terrible was their reputation. 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 stockton thompson. (Paperback) read more
"Not a complete page-turner, and not nearly as brilliant as 'fear and loathing', this is none the less well worth reading, full of captivating hipster-language, and weird insights into the subculture of the Hells Angels. Hunter S. Thompson is a brilliant investigative journalist both able to give a high-flying sociological analysis of the Angels, and at the same time (quite unlike most sociologists) able to blend in with them - ride bikes, drink and consume drugs with the best... "showing real class". The book is both a wild tale of some of the antics and crazy parties the Angels were part of in the 60s and a tale of how society reacted - how the newsmedia, the police, the squares and politicians all misunderstood and misinterpreted the angels as a group. The most interesting misinterpretation however is the idea some left-wing "berkeley-type" intellectuals apparently also had regarding the angels... that they were basically on the same side, and that the angels just needed to be illuminated before they would sympathise with hippies. A total misunderstanding of who the angels were, and what they represented."
"Is there anything more delicious than when the infamous writes about the infamous. I'm hardly one of those whacked-out Hunter S. Thompson-ophiles, but "Hell's Angels," his nonfiction-ish account of spending the mid-1960s with the motorcycle club as it revved its way into mainstream media is a total kick.
"Weird as it seems, as this gang of costumed hoodlums converged on Monterey that morning they were on the verge of 'making it big,' as the showbiz people say, and they would owe most of their success to a curious rape mania that rides on the shoulder of American journalism like some jeering, masturbating raven. Nothing grabs an editor's eye like a good rape."
Thompson follows their runs, when the group converges on a city, which preemptively terrorizes the locals, who envision all the raping and pillaging they are about to have foisted upon them. It's not a basis-less fear: the Angel's are known for brawls and gang bangs -- although they tend to reason that the women they encounter know what they are in for. He writes about their commitment to uncleanliness, the bikers' uniform and the rumors of inner-circle homosexuality. The drinking and the drugs, and their day jobs -- or lack thereof -- and seemingly pedestrian pursuits. As they grow in popularity, the Hell's Angels become publicity seekers who eventually want to charge money to share their stories.
Associating with Hell's Angels does little for Hunter Thompson's reputation with his neighbors, and he is evicted when there are complaints about these visiting motorcyclists and their wild ways. In my favorite moment of the book, Thompson turns to the reader to confess that the really bad stuff wasn't even done by Hells Angels. Their visits, he says, were just loud music, a few bikes on the sidewalk, and an occasional shot out back window.
"Most of the bad action came on nights when there was no Angels around: One of my most respectible visitors, an advertising executive from New York, became hungry after a long night of drink and stole a ham from the refrigerator of a nearby apartment; another guest set my mattress afire with a flare and we had to throw it out the back window; another ran wild in the street with a high-powered Falcon air horn normally carried on boats for use as a distress signal."
Not to mention the time a visiting poet chucked a garbage can under the wheels of a passing bus.
In the last third of the book, Thompson gives the Angels a bit of access to his life. This is where the Angels start hanging out on Ken Kesey's land and taking LSD, which strangely mellows them out. There is Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and nudity and police cars.
(Obviously I'm going to have to read "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" now, since I enjoyed this so much.)"
"At the time of publication the Hells Angels were a home grown menace that was both real and imagined (and they owe not a little of that infamy to the media as HST aptly points out). They have since evolved from their simple nomad rabble rouser days to being mischievous enough to earn the ire of the F.B.I. along with the rest of the "Big Four" outlaw gangs. In the "Quebec Biker War" between the Angels and the "Rock Machine", over 150 people were killed which is on par with the biggest Cosa Nostra conflicts in the U.S.A. So while average citizens don't generally walk in fear of the Hells Angels it is a stretch to consider biker gangs to be an insignificant thing of the past.
For my part I thought that it was very interesting and surprisingly fair considering that the author was in effect part of the Angels camp by association. Drawing from first hand experience from "runs" that he participated in and primary source interviews, HST pulls no punches in calling it as he sees it. Often he points out the illogical doctrines of gang mentality and inherent irony at their loss individuality in the attempt to distance themselves from society at large and their law abiding motorcycle counterparts without the evangelical fire of an outsider looking in.
It is precisely because the book is not "nearly as Gonzo" (as stated by another reviewer) as some of his seminal works that Thompson makes a credible account. He doesn't overly vilify the Angels nor does he belittle their loyalty to one another and the jocular perspective on what they consider to be a misfit lifestyle. His commentary carries perspective because he is accomplice by mild participation but he never quite loses the stigma of "the establishment" by the Angels own admission. This is punctuated at the close by the stomping he takes from the hands and boots of some of the Angels. Despite that he chooses not to close with malice but with words of affection for some of the Angels he grew to know as people beyond the colors.
Thompson's account was researched, thorough and insightful. He never offers a conclusion or even a reason why-only a what. For that he offers the reader a ride with the perhaps the most infamous of the world's outlaw motorcycle gangs.
"There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others-the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still out there. Or maybe it's in. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions."
-Hunter S. Thompson: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga of The Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs-"
"My girlfriend had just finished this book, and I had run out of Terry Pratchett (for the moment), so I picked it up. It's good.c Hunter S. Thompson goes well out of his way to rock out with a pack of 60s and 70 Hell's Angels, way out there in Cali. He does a great job of confronting and dispelling a great deal of the rumors of these modern pirates, but at times I think he simply painted them how he wanted to see them. Thompson does his best to bring out the basic humanity of his subjects, whom he rodes with, drank with, and fought with over a number of years. Covered are legendary clashes with the police, which are really never the Hell's Angels' fault. I feel as if I've known the Hell's Angels Thompson creates: they're rednecks, they're drunken, drugged louts who hang around their bars waiting for something to happen, and if it doesn't, they just pick something to fight and fight it. Often one another. In the end, Hell's Angels evokes the image of brotherhood gone wrong, of the bottom 1% of the human pile, the wretches, who simply want the world their way and refuse to compromise. The Hell's Angels of the 60s and 70s were simply a gang in the purest sense of the term. They were loosely friends, and defended one another with inhuman fervor against any outsiders. And there's drugs and sex and orgies and all sorts of other stuff. Fires, parties, drugs and cops, and a cowardly drug addict journalist sitting in the middle of it all, recording what went down, dipping his toes in the brackish waters of their world, never allowing himself to become completely sodden, until one of them pulls him down. The prose is light, a little too stilted in the On the Road vein, but still entertaining. I read this one fast, and it kept me moving. Recommended as a brief respite from whatever series you're currently reading. 4 of 6"
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