I tackled this book Sunday morning and had to finish it up by midnight. The author successfully captured the birth and spread of a new way to experience conscienceless, while exposing similarities to mainstream religions. This book is of historic value to me as it clearly depicts an entire era that I previously had only caught dramatized glimpses of. ( )

Two words: get on the bus.wait...that's not two words...whoa...my consciousness is expanding into base-1/2 numerals...excellent...pass the OJ before the rest of my face melts off...... ( )

This was so very interesting! ( )

This is just an amazing book. I'm rereading it now for the first time in 15 years, and I'm happy that time hasn't diminished it for me even though it's definitely a different reading experience this time around. ( )

i thought that this book was very informational. this is also a book that my mom got me into. i got through the first part and it got a little boring for me it just seems like the book was talking about the same thing over and over again i did find it funny in some parts but not so, in others. this was a tough book for me to get through. ( )

Really enjoyed this book though I found it very tough to plough through as Tom Wolfe attempted to convey the Merry Pranksters experience through the book. To my mind he was largely successful in this venture, to the extend that I started to feel scattered if I read it for too long. ( )

Very interesting book, helped usher in a new, more personally involved pseudo-journalistic style of writing. ( )

Jeez, this was good, but I could hardly finish reading it because it was so incredibly vivid. Set my teeth on edge and my mind a-whirl, let me tell you. I don't think I've ever read another piece of fiction that was so evocative of what is essentially an indescribable state. ( )

Jeez, this was good, but I could hardly finish reading it because it was so incredibly vivid. Set my teeth on edge and my mind a-whirl, let me tell you. I don't think I've ever read another piece of fiction that was so evocative of what is essentially an indescribable state. ( )

At first, reading this book made my brain hurt. After a while, I grooved to the flow and grokked it fully. Actually, I would imagine I might understand this book better if I had ever taken LSD, which I haven't. Honestly, I wasn't even born when all of this happened. I wish I had been. It seems like an excellent scene.
The writing begins semi-journalistically, but quickly devolves into a drug-soaked rambling that's just barely intelligible, until, as I said, you get into it. I mean, really into it. Wolf's words makes one *almost* able to understand what an acid trip might be like. It's an entirely different way of thinking.
I think this book is essential to understanding the era. ( )

The drug-taking (psychedelic) hippies of the sixties, West Coast branch, are featured in this book. In particular, Ken Kesey, with whom Wolfe is clearly taken--perhaps too much so, since Wolfe's language implies a journalistic detachment, and I sense he lost his head a bit here, over Kesey, who was more than a bit of a blowhard. But for the most part the author does a good job of laying out what happened and when, out there. ( )

I understand what he was trying to do... and well, he did it. It was unlike anything I've ever read, and it 'tuned' me into that era like no other literary piece had, and I suppose, ever will. My only regret regarding the book, is that I couldn't get into the atmosphere of the book as I knew it was intended. I have never taken a psychedelic drug, and I suppose that is what held me back from connecting with the book as it was intended. ( )

A classic! Meant a lot to me while I read it and that's something to say about a book! ( )

This book is the first of it's kind written in a new journalistic format and also to delve into the counter-culture that was the Hippies. Tom Wolfe spent a large amount of time with Ken Kasey and his band of Merry Pranksters as they toured the country in a bus. A number of well-known artists are mentioned in this book, including Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl, Wavy Gravy, and Timothy Leary. ( )

! ... ( )

OK, is it Neal Cassidy or just me? The first time I read this book reminded me of the first time I read "On The Road", when I come upon Neal (Dean) it's as if the text gets shifted into 6th gear and I'm suddenly catapulted down the road at 100 mph with a handful of aphetamines in my system. This is an awsome cronicle of that most special time in our country in that most special place. Truly make you want to know "can you pass the acid test?" ( )

Great behind the scenes glimpse of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. This book WILL make you want to drop acid...I've said too much. ( )

This book is an excellent look at history and a cultural movement that changed the world. Very interesting and well written. ( )

Groovy. A journalistic approach to a time that denied journalistic conventions. ( )

(150)
This book was a very confusing story about the late '60s in
San Francisco, CA. (Mostly the Haight Ashbury District)
It's about how Ken Kesey returns from prison, and he tries to stop the pranksters from promoting LSD. Also, the story of how they ended up putting LSD into the Kool-Aid at a Dead concert.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone with a small attention span. It also requires a lot of knowledge of that time, and takes a while to understand.

I liked it, but decided that after more research i should re-read it and I would understand it more. ( )

Simply put, Wolfe was privy to the autumn of the beat movement as it transitioned into the free-love, experimentation era of hippie-dom in the 1960s. He captures the frenetic restlessness of the beatniks (most notably Neal Cassady) in a day-glo bus in a last gasp cross-country run. It's no 'On the Road,' but it's a good way to catch up with Kerouac's hero Dean Moriarty years on from his days with Sal Paradise. ( )

I never got into this book...maybe I was too young when I tryed to read it (a teen) I don't know. ( )

A great cultural homage to the Age of Aquarius

In the early 1960's, Tom Wolfe hung with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters as they embarked upon a series of LSD-fueled adventures across the country. The sequence of events included experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in California, a chaotic trip to New York for the publication of Kesey's second novel, back to California and a series of "Acid-tests" (basically a '60's version of Raves), a run-in with the Feds and the flight to Mexico, then back to the USA and a short prison term for marijuana posession. I bought this in 1972, only to leave it unread until 2002, and Gawd, I feel like a geezer for saying this, but this is basically a documentary of a bunch of hedonistic, drug-swilling amoral irresponsible young punks who think the world owes them a living and can't understand why they aren't appreciated for their innovative use of drugs for mind-expansion. I read it because Kesey wrote one of my all-time favorite books, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". That book is still great, but Kesey comes across as a more benign Charles Manson type, and it's difficult to reconcile the two aspects of the man. Also, Wolfe's writing style suggests that he was on one drug or another throughout most of the writing. ( )

I'm just not "on the bus." Although I liked this better than "Bonfire of the Vanities," I think you have to be on drugs to want to read this book. ( )