Tuesday: Hunter S. Thompson

Earlier this year, Matt lent me a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. I'd tried to read it before, but never quite finished it and I think the reason is that it seems to finish about two thirds the way through and then sort of trails off, or, more likely, comes unstuck. It's an entertaining enough read though, and Thompson, like Oscar Wilde, is very quotable.

I've recently bought a copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, when he followed George McGovern in his vain attempt at the presidency of the U.S. against Richard Nixon.

Nixon eventually resigned after the Watergate scandal in 1974 which was all about a break in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington DC, part of a dirty tricks campaign against McGovern.

Thompson's book has been referred to by one of the Democrat organizers as "the least factual and most accurate" account of what happened and is quite a bit more substantial that his previous work, about 1" thick.