Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

by Ralph Steadman, Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken. Now this cult classic of gonzo journalism is a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and... (more)

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

by Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe's much-discussed kaleidoscopic non-fiction novel chronicles the tale of novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. In the 1960s, Kesey led a group of psychedelic sympathizers around the country in a painted bus, presiding over LSD-induced "acid tests" all along the way. Long considered one of the greatest books about the history of the hippies, Wolfe's ability to research like a reporter and... (more)

Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

by Hunter S. Thompson

The author's harrowing and critically acclaimed first book chronicles his year riding with the Hell's Angels and other motorcycle gangs, an "experiment" that ended when he was beaten nearly to death by a group of Angels. 20,000 first printing. NYT.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan

The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan

by Robert Anton Wilson, Scott Shea, Carol Ann Wilson, Robert Shea

"The biggest sci-fi cult novel to come along since Dune."--The Village Voice.

Drop City

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life has decided to relocate to the last frontier—the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska—in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. Armed with the spirit of adventure and naïve optimism, the inhabitants of "Drop City" arrive in the wilderness of Alaska only to find their utopia already populated by... (more)

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

by William S. Burroughs

Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the work of authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson, on the relationship of art and obscenity, and on the shape of music, film, and media generally, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. Reedited by Burroughs scholar Barry Miles and Burroughs's... (more)

by Hunter S. Thompson

Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-ups

Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-ups

by Robert Anton Wilson

Before the X-Files, before alt.conspiracy, there was Robert Anton Wilson and his legendary Illuminatus! Trilogy. Now this avatar of conspiriology, renowned for his razor wit and progressive philosophy, takes you on a fascinating, eclectic ride through what Wilson has termed the "Cultic Twilight" where conspiracy theories flourish. Everything Is Under Control covers the range of Wilson's kaleidoscopic... (more)

The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

by Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes, Shane Smith, Suroosh Avi

What started out as a few twenty-something drug addicts writing a newsletter and scamming welfare-to-work programs in the mid-nineties has become a global empire of hedonism that includes a magazine, a chain of retail stores, a clothing line, Vice Films, Vice TV, Vice Records, and viceland.com. A compilation of the magazines best articles over the past decade, the book includes hilarious, edgy, and informative... (more)

Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market

Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market

by Eric Schlosser

America"s black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqué video, or pay our kids" nannies in cash. In Reefer Madness the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation turns his exacting eye on the underbelly of the American marketplace and its far-reaching influence on our society. Exposing three American mainstays — pot, porn, and illegal immigrants... (more)

Steal This Book

by Bert Cohen, Izak Haber, Abbie Hoffman

A driving force behind the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Hoffman inspired a generation to challenge the status quo. Meant as a practical guide for the aspiring hippie, Steal This Book captures Hoffman’s puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don’t... (more)

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (Twentieth-Century Classics)

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (Twentieth-Century Classics)

by Thomas Pynchon, Richard Farina

Farina evokes the Sixties as precisely, wittily, and poignantly as F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age. The hero, Gnossus Pappadopoulis, weaves his way through the psychedelic landscape, encountering - among other things - mescaline, women, art, gluttony, falsehood, science, prayer, and, occasionally, truth.

The Curse of Lono

by Hunter S. Thompson

The Curse of Lono is to Hawaii what Fear and Loathing was to Las Vegas: the crazy tales of a journalist’s "coverage" of a news event that ends up being a wild ride to the dark side of Americana.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll (Vintage)

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll (Vintage)

by Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs

Vintage presents the paperback edition of the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs--the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s--edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rack critics, Greil Marcus. Advertising in Rolling Stone and other major publications.

Nova Express

by William S. Burroughs

Nova Express takes William S. Burroughs’s nightmarish future one step beyond The Soft Machine. The diabolical Nova criminals have gained control and plan on wreaking untold destruction. It’s up to Inspector Lee of the Nova Police to attack and dismantle the word-and-imagery machine of these “control addicts” before it’s too late.

Gonzo Papers: Book 2

Generation of Swine

Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s

by Hunter S. Thompson

A running tally of the folly of the 80's, the decade known for men of "huge brains, small necks, weak muscles and fat wallets.." - NYT Book Review From the Trade Paperback edition.

Cosmic Banditos

by A. C. Weisbecker

Thousands of fans agree- Cosmic Banditos has been out of print for way too long. So here it is, back by popular demand: A.C. Weisbecker's rollicking novel of high times and hard times-in which he hilariously chronicles the adventures of a group of pot-smoking, number-crunching banditos-in-hiding.

High Times Presents Paul Krassner's Pot Stories for the Soul

High Times Presents Paul Krassner's Pot Stories for the Soul

For this book, Paul Krassner contacted 250 friends and acquaintances to cull stories. These true tales, ranging from funny to bizarre to poignant, include "How the Yippies Mailed 30,000 Joints to Perfect Strangers," "The Bust at Ken Kesey's Place," and "The Acid Trip of a Death Row Prisoner.

Trout Fishing in America: A Novel

by Richard Brautigan

A novel which is both playful and serious, hilarious and melancholy. It takes a journey which starts at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in Washington Square, San Francisco, and wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways.

Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin

Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin

by Alice Echols

Janis Joplin was the skyrocket chick of the sixties, the woman who broke into the boys' club of rock and out of the stifling good-girl femininity of postwar America. With her incredible wall-of-sound vocals, Joplin was the voice of a generation, and when she OD'd on heroin in October 1970, a generation's dreams crashed and burned with her. Alice Echols pushes past the legary Joplin-the red-hot mama of her own... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: counterculture

A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

by Ralph Steadman, Hunter S. Thompson

by Tom Wolfe

by Hunter S. Thompson

by Robert Anton Wilson, Scott Shea, Carol Ann Wilson, Robert Shea

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

by William S. Burroughs

by Hunter S. Thompson

by Robert Anton Wilson

by Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes, Shane Smith, Suroosh Avi

by Eric Schlosser

by Bert Cohen, Izak Haber, Abbie Hoffman

by Thomas Pynchon, Richard Farina

by Hunter S. Thompson

by Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs

by William S. Burroughs

Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s

by Hunter S. Thompson

by A. C. Weisbecker

by Richard Brautigan

by Alice Echols