Books: September 2005 Archives

Some books are so haunting that after I've read them I think of life before I read the book or life after I read the book.

While sailing this last weekend I finished "Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. It was one of those books for me.

"For you a thousand times over ..."

There was so much press concerning Hunter S. Thompson's suicide and subsequent cannon-ization, I thought I would read one of his books. I picked "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".

I recall having read another Hunter S. Thompson book in the distant past and being completely unimpressed. My theory is that I was too young or too uptight when I read it.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's very hard for me to imagine people actually ingesting this amount of drugs and living. For some reason reading the crazy stream of weirdness writing really worked for me. BTW, I have no desire to try and replicate the experience myself although I admit it does sound like it might be fun to trash a rental car.

It's one of those curious books that has one fulcrum paragraph that jumps out at you as being the most important thing the book has to say.

Acid use aside, we all try to buy "peace and understanding" and most of us find out that what we bought isn't what we expected it to be. You can replace the word "acid" with religion, consumerism, sex, power or any other experience people seek intending to buy their happiness and peace for three buck a hit.

I liked the book a lot, your results may vary.

The book is illustrated by Ralph Steadman whose works grace my favorite cafe, Hell's Kitchen.