About this title: Hunter Thompson's novel, written when he was in his 20s, is the partly autobiographical tale of an American journalist's wild adventures in Puerto Rico in the 1950s. A "New York Times" Notable Book for 1998.
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Description: Good. 0671582771 Audio cassette in original box that shows moderate shelf-wear, chips, and minor tears. Cassette is in stock and ready to ship from Phoenix, Arizona same or next business day. Select Expedited Shipping and receive your tape within 3-5 business days. Buy with confidence! Please leave feedback after your purchase. It helps other buyers know we are a responsible and reliable seller. Thank you! read more
Description: Simon & Schuster Audio, 1998. Read by Campbell Scott. Audio Book 4 cassettes in hard plastic case, no library marks. Just finished listening to it. Works great. Selling books of quality and distinction since 1990. Satisfaction guaranteed. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Cloth Hardback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Riverside, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: Fine+/Very Good. 0684855216 204pp First printing Map endpapers Dust jacket is lightly rubbed and has small tear on edge of jacket. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, NY
Date Published: 1998
Description: Fine. Thompson's novel, written in 1959, published now for the first time. Advance reader's excerpt (paperback). Fine in glossy pictorial wraps.; 47 pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster 1998
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: ISBN 0684855216. Hardback. First Printing. Very Good condition book in a Very Good condition dustjacket with minor rubs and creases around its edges. Tight, sound, unmarked copy. read more
Edition: First Edition/First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: Very Good + in N-Fine jacket. A square solid tight copy. This copy has two light corner bumps, one page has two short creases, this copy has some light pagedge soil, some minor edgewear to the bottom board edges. The 24.00 jscket has some light rubbing wear, some minor edgewear. Here is the rub...I will sell Thompson books but I am not a Thompson scholar. There is no indication that this book was published before the above date althought it does state that it was started in 1959. If you were ... read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, N.Y.
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: Fine in Very Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Black boards, pictorial d.j. This is about tangled love, jealousy, treachery and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico in the late 1950's. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Cloth
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. Signed by Author First edition, first printing, Signed (initialed) by H S T on tipped in bookplate. A fine clean tight unread copy in fine dust jacket. When the book was released Hunter did a signing at a SF bookstore, he refused to sign books directly at the event but signed bookplates that were affixed to the books. I was at the event where I purchased this copy, absolutely authentic. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1998-11-02
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: New. ~FIRST PRINTING, 1998~BRAND NEW~HARDCOVER WITH DUST JACKET PROTECTED IN MYLAR~SAME AS PICTURED~**Check out my other listings: BOOKS, CDS, DVDS, VIDEOS, GAMES**Fast Delivery*** read more
Edition: Advance Reader's Excerpt
Binding: Original Wrappers
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: Near Fine/Fine. Advance reader's excerpt--pages 7-47 of the "long lost" novel by the late, great Hunter S. Thompson. Bound in original wrappers replicating design of book's dust jacket [photomontage front panel lettered in black]. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780684855219ISBN:0684855216
Description: Very Good in Very Good- jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Very Good/ Very Good-in boards. Very light wear to boards; light wear to jacket, small perforation to front cover at hinge. 204 pages. read more
"This is one of the greatest novels I've ever read. About a man who moves to San Juan, Puerto Rico to become a journalist and escape the troubles of the civilized world. The passage where he describes why he left New York to come to San Juan is one of the best written passages I've read. Hunter S really knows how to keep a person wanting more and circle him around madness, rum, and promiscuous behaviour. The plot is really simple and realistic with no real high or low point, but just a straight line of life we all go through. The analysis of mankind and their brutish ways."
"I seriously recommend the rating system either have half stars or go up to ten because I feel horrible giving his book a four.
The first Thompson book I read was the oh-so-popular "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" mainly because I love learning about the drug culture. I had heard that "Rum Diary" was a different path; however, I was not troubled by it. I knew the drug culture would be gone, but I also I knew I could get the same swift, dirty, poetic style of writing I loved from "FaLiLV."
I was pleased to see this was still evident in "Rum Diary," although because of its more subdued nature, it was less frequent. It went well with the I'm-gonna-live-my-life-one-dirty-day-at-a-time type of feel. Drink rum, eat hamburgers, go into work late, dread going back to the apartment where you can't open your windows.
It was painfully realistic, but maybe that's because I have spent a bit of time as a journalist myself. Bosses are unbelievable, you don't want to finish that boring story and how could the editor possibly think this would be a 12-inch piece when it clearly only has enough merit for six. I enjoy this sense of realism. I'm more likely to feel like I'm there. I felt myself sitting in that office building next to a huge typewriter and wondering when the boss was going to be breathing down his neck. I don't get this feeling from books often, but I did here.
I admit, though, that I read this book with the upcoming movie weighing heavily in my mind. I didn't want it to do this, but it happened. First of all: Mr. Depp, you're starting to get too old play characters that are still in their 20s. Then there was the thoughts of who would play the only female character, Chenault. Then it was "If people thought 'Public Enemies' was boring, how are they going to deal with this?"
Not to say this was boring; I'm just not quite sure this is Hollywood material. The ending to this was there, but about the beginning?
Frankly, I enjoyed the quiet, I-don't-give-a-damn flow. With having read a psycho thriller, "Memoirs of a Geisha" and now diving into "Fight Club," it was needed."
"The book is written in the typical Thompson's fear and loathing style leaving that feeling of desperation and uttermost survival in the social jungle of some remote place on earth. The style of the author in this book is not so witty and overwhelming as in other of Hunter Thompson's books but the story reaches out and grabs you by the throat, suffocating the reader in "Do these things really happen out there?" manner. I did not have fun reading it like I did with The Curse of Lono or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but the the book really affected me as only a good writer can do. Perhaps because the story was not funny.. Not funny at all.."
""The Rum Diary," a novel written when Hunter Thompson was in his early twenties and not published until the late 1990s, is of interest mostly to fans of the late journalist. Readers can easily see the influence Hemingway's novels, "The Sun Also Rises" in particular, had on Thompson, and they also can observe him developing his signature style of manic, paranoid overstatement, here found mostly in the dialogue.
In fact, almost everyone in "The Rum Diary" sounds like a version of Thompson himself -- not unusual for an early novel, I suppose. Characters in "The Rum Diary," just as in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and Thompson's other books, tend to say things like, "These people are animals! We'll be lucky to get out of here alive." And there's drunkenness -- a lot of drunkenness -- which is hardly surprising for a Thompson book.
"The Rum Diary" is not a great book, to be sure, but it's a quick, entertaining read. Readers unacquainted with Thompson shouldn't start here, and the unconverted certainly won't have their minds changed by "The Rum Diary." But fans may like to see the ways Thompson progressed -- and, perhaps more interestingly, the ways he didn't -- from his early days of writing."
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