This is the Hunter Thompson book you've never heard of, but really want to read. It's mostly about how crappy Hawaii is. It has the best ending of any of his stuff I've read, hands down. Getting the book though is another matter. The paperback of it has been out of print since the early 80s. It's only produced now by Taschen, the art book company, as a big 60 dollar coffee table book. And they only started really printing it about a year after the first batch of 1000. The first 1000 Taschen put

Hunter Thompson does Hawaii on a family vacation. Yep, that about sums it up.

I think this is my fave HST book. Coupled with Steadman's delicious gonzo art, the writing and story really comes alive.Its a crazy romp through Hawaii which no Thompson or Steadman fan should go without reading!*If you're a fan of Steadmans art, as I am in a big way - look for a recently published version of Lono. Its a huge oversized hardback printed on high quality pages where Steadman's art really is given center stage. I keep it on display at all times!

I had seen this lying around the local Half-Price Books and snagged it with a coupon diminishing the hefty price tag. This is a gigantic book with huge beautiful prints by Steadman as well as the usual crazed drunken rambling of Thompson.The whole thing is about a trip to Hawaii to cover the Honolulu Marathon that goes awry a la la Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and degenerates into a mescaline-fueled marlin hunt with a smattering of interesting pre-American Hawaiian history. The art is great, t...

I accepted my assignment with some wild trepidation. It’d been a while since I spent time with Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and I knew the crazy bastard would give me the shakes if I let off the throttle for half a second.Before I uploaded the book, his 1983 visit to Hawaii and the dark underbelly of Americana, I fired up the El Camino and went for provisions, I wouldn’t be left stranded high and dry like a potbellied iguana the way I had in Costa Rica; I’d be ready this time. I surveyed my haul: thre...

Not his best effort, a little disjointed and and depressing, but it was an interesting read.

I don't know why I have been in Hawaii this long without reading this. It was time to pick it up.It has all the hallmarks of a Hunter Thompson work.... energy, macho, drugs & alcohol, fast cars, loose talk and some politically uncorrect nouns and adjectives. The drawings of Ralph Steadman add even more edginess. The story is secondary to the style.Also, like any Hunter Thompson book, there is redeeming content. While an ordinary journalist would cover Waikiki, surfing and flowers... they rate on...

It was such an amazing and twisted read. I couldn't put the book down. I even cuddled with it.

“Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.” I was intrigued by the claim that Hunter Thompson's The Curse of Lono was to Hawaii what Fear and Loathing was to Las Vegas. Though Thompson predictably interjects himself into the story he is reportedly covering, the Hawaii Marathon, I didn't feel as immersed in his crazed adventures as I had with Fear and Loathing. I had some interest in how Thompson covered big game fishing and I liked how he used journal entries from Captain Cook's voyage to

It's rather swish of me, but I have the huge and lavish Taschen edition of this wonderful book - probably one of Thompson's most underrated pieces of work.Any book that starts with the narrator making his way through customs with a blue arm because he chickened out of flushing his stash down the airplane toilet and grabbed it back is obviously going to be pretty 'out there' and this doesn't disappoint.As usual, Steadman's manic illustrations match Thompson's twisted narrative. Brilliant.I went b...

The most elaborate, hilarious, and engrossing "big fish" tale ever committed to print. This is one of Hunter Thompson's greatest achievements, and it doesn't hurt that the packaging is lavish. A huge coffeetable book with quality prints, facsimiles of the Good Doctor's relevant letters, and interspersed excerpts from other books that fill in the Hawaiian history relevant to the story. What is so fascinating about this last feature is that it reveals what other HST books have left out: the studio...

Part of a conversation about this book:E: Just ate a sub-par dinner, reading Hunter S. Thompson, avoiding cleaning....I'm doing pretty good.P: Fear and Loathing?E: The Curse of Lono. Hawaii in the 80s, marathons, botched fishing excursions, mescaline.P: Right up there with brown copper kettles and warm woolen mittensExactly.

My current favourite book of all time, from my current favourite writer of all time. I never thought I'd ever get a chance to read this badboy, or at least, not until I hit the age of forty. But my parents were kind enough to splurge on it for my birthday back on July 11th, 2013. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this thing is bloody ginormous. My version is a coffee-table book, meaning it could technically be used as a weapon or to club off intruders.The pictures are beautiful, and the si...

*Back-dating reviews based on snips I find*I’m officially taking a break from Hunter S. Thompson. I’m sick of feeling like I’m missing the point. I swear, that blurb has made me paranoid! Every book I read, I’m like “Is it hilarious? Am I missing something hilarious?” I mean, I like his style of writing and I like the fact that much of it surrounds journalism in some form, but I’ve never read a book – barring ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ and felt like I really got the tone it was written in,...

HST was an absolute legend, I can never get enough of his work. This book is brilliant (as always), full of experiences only HST could get into. Pages full of Steadman's artwork in-colour make the wild ride come to life.

I listened to this on audiobook and so probably didn't catch everything. I found it quite energetic and a lot of fun, with a number of memorable scenes including "trapped on a boat with drug fiends during a midnight storm," "impersonating a Hawaiian deity," and many scenes in which a Samoan war club proves essential. Another possible title could have been Fear and Loathing in Hawaii. I liked this book a lot, and I will definitely read the physical copy at some point in the future. There were a f...

As I read this beautifully written book I noted how much of himself he accepted, he was not afraid to share everything. Judgement on his lifestyle or bad decisions was left for his peers while he continued on with his whimsical lunacy.I say lunacy without malice, I use it to describe the mind set of those brave enough to be unique, live their lives and embrace their mistakes even when knowingly making them. I long to be rid of the anxiety which holds me back from such adventures, living for the

One afternoon this week as I rode my bicycle home from the library I passed under the branches of an array of stout old trees along the roadway. But I had my suspicions about them, and this, more or less verbatim, was what I was thinking:"They look safe enough, but you read about their dastardly ways once in awhile, dropping a trunk onto some hapless unsuspecting bastard, pile-driving him into oblivion. You'd think I was safe, being a tree-hugger, but they don't care. I'm human."Now, would I hav...

A truly bizarre book. It tries to be a worthy follow-up in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas vein, but, like the high-water mark Thompson described in that earlier book, nothing of Thompson's later writing reached as high as the Vegas book. This one is set in Hawaii and moves through chronicling the Honolulu Marathon in early December 1980, through some truly atrocious weather, and into Thompson's raving return from a successful fishing trip, claiming to be Lono, the following June. Ralph Stead...

Curse of Lono came out in 1983, which means I would've been about 14 when I found it inexplicable racked in my small town's sole bookshop/newsstand. I freely admit I'd never heard of Thompson or Steadman, and that it was actually the latter's frenetic and vaguely frightening art that drew me to the book. Ten bucks would've been hard for me to come by at the time (probably proceeds from my short-lived Sunday-paper route), but this book was something I had to have. It is not hyperbole to say that