Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28425 in Books
• Published on: 1980-11-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

Customer Reviews

The king of Gonzo...
Well, I wouldn't suggest that you buy this book if you are unaquainted with Thompson's work, you should buy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then, if you like that, buy The Great Shark Hunt. I say that because I have offered The Great Shark Hunt to people who haven't read any Thompson and they were put off by its sheer length and the content of some of the articles.

The reason I like this book is because it is pretty open-ended, because the book is a collection of articles you can read the ones that interest you and skip the ones that don't grab you. There is no reason why you should read it straight from cover-to-cover.

There is some pure gold in here, including excerpts from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the infamous The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved (considered to be Thompson's first gonzo article) and many other gems.

I'd say, buy this, but only if you are sure you like Thompson because it isn't the best means of getting started on him. To sum it up in one line; If you love Hunter S. Thompson's work, you'll love this...

A mind blowing experience
Maybe you've seen the film Fear and loathing in Las Vegas and want to know more about the man behind it. Well, this is a great way to do it. The Great Shark Hunt consists of extracts of Dr Thompsons work. Yes, you'll find parts from Las Vegas here, but you'll find so much more. Reading this book, I had tremendously fun. Sometimes I laughed right out. How often do you do that reading? My favourite parts are The Kentucky Derby and The Great Shark Hunt, where Thompson takes sport journalism to a level it never want to find itself. So, all you really need to know is; if you haven't read this book - go ahead and enjoy yourself.

Strange stories from Doktor
One of the biggest mistakes some people make about Hunter Thompson is that they don't look further than Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. This collection of essays and articles shows Thompson to be a true leader in counter culture literature as well as a formidable wordsmith in more general terms, as it were. In many ways this book seems like a trial run for The Proud Highway, but the amount of actual repetition is insignificant and HST bounds through several decades with the energy of a six year old pumped full of ritalin. The title story is one of Thompson's best works, with a hilarious description of two dope heads trapped in a world of big game fishing geeks. And "Collect Telegram from a Mad Dog" shows that Thompson could make his point using poetry too, and he leaves his own mark without being pompous or bloated. All in all this book is an invaluable asset if you want to study strangeness, giving an invaluable insight into a remarkable writer who took weirdness to the people in equal doses of charm and hostility. Hey! This book made a Swede laugh out loud - buy it you scumbags.