The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test | 
so-soI didn‘t particularly like this book, but I found it written in an interesting way that worked well on audio. I was intrigued enough to look up more about Kesey and the 2011 documentary using some of the Merry Pranksters‘ video footage. I‘m slightly more interested in reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo‘s Nest with this background on the author but still baffled by the idea of a continuous acid trip road trip and parties offering basically free LSD.
This is a strange book, another one I probably never would have picked up without the 1001 list, but at the same time I‘m somewhat intrigued by hearing their crazy escapades. So, in that respect, listening to the audio while I‘m doing other things, like walking in this winter wonderland, is perfect.
#1001books #audiobook
bailedMaybe if the library had this one on audio…? But I just can‘t settle into the rhythm of the writing. And I am interested in the concept here, but when the thing I like most about a book is the cover it really isn‘t worth my time.
pickSuch a fun book to read. However, I will admit that I was over it by the last few chapters. Which I think I was almost supposed to feel considering the pranksters were also very much overdone by the end? Great read nonetheless. ✨
I‘m obsessed with the passages in this book. It‘s just all so entertaining. Like listening to a friend tell a really long but awesome story.
panThis was so not the book for me. The writing style grated on my nerves, I found the hippies on the bus to be selfish, entitled asshats, and the only part I enjoyed at all was when Kinsey tried to fake his own death in such a moronic way. I did achieve in picking something unusual for True Crime Book Club, but I truly regret making people buy this book. Maybe if you enjoy the beat poets or were on the bus you'd like it?
#Readin22 #bookclub
This is not an author I‘ve read or am familiar with but this title and book cover caught my eye 😬
#TomWolfe 🐺 #WeRemember 💔🌹
#BookNerd 🤓💙📚
Wolfe was one-of-a-kind. The tagged book was first published in 1968 and I read it in college in 1971 - his personal experiences interacting/interviewing people involved with the late 1960's counterculture revolution.
#TomWolfe #WeRemember @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
It‘s finally starting to feel like spring in London! Sunday morning with coffee and my mum‘s very battered copy of this book under a blanket. My brain feels a little clearer and better now, lockdown is lifting a little bit in the uk, a decent amount of my family is vaccinated and it‘s finally not looking like winter. Hopefully I‘ll be able to be a bit more engaged with reading and being online!
#RedRoseSeptember From the virtual TBR ~ writer Tom Wolfe rode the psychedelic bus across America chronicling the #GroovyTrain(wreck) of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, a 60‘s counterculture group. Meant to be a wild ride 🤟🏼☮️
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️ Traversing the nation with the Merry Pranksters as they “transcended the bullshit” felt like a hellacious hallucination, but I love reading about 60s counterculture. I can‘t say I was a huge fan of this particular story, mostly due to that pompous ass Ken Kesey, but Wolfe‘s writing is mesmerizing. The audio is fabulous.
Never read this but Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters‘ hallucinogenic ride through America sounds a little like #HighwaytoHell 🤷♀️
#MayMovieMagic
4-9-19: My 30th finished book of 2019! #theelectrickoolaidacidtest #tomwolfe ☮️📖#️⃣3️⃣0️⃣
From Houston they headed east through the Deep South, and the Deep South in July was… lava. The air rushing into the open windows of the bus came in hot and gritty like invisible smoke, and when they stopped it just rolled over them, pure lava.
My summer reading chair. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ This is my happy place! 😍😍
Journalist Tom Wolfe followed around novelist Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters who road around in their painted bus and did LSD (via Kool aid) all over the country in the 60s. His work is written as if it were first-hand, which was a new style of journalism for 1968, and captures the essence of the counter-culture through this group‘s interactions w/ Hell‘s Angels, The Grateful Dead, and others. #lucyintheskywithdiamonds #heyjune
#HeyJune Day 18: Apparently, there is a list of books on Goodreads that feature LSD, otherwise known as #LucyInTheSkyWithDiamonds.
Wolfe chronicled his account of living and travelling with Ken Kesey and his cult-like hippies crew across the country in a vividly painted school bus. Equipped with loads of LSD. And lots of Acid Tests.
#HeyJune #lucyintheskywithdiamonds
R.I.P. Tom Wolfe
(Image from google)
New issue of ‘Fine Books and Collections‘ 😔
Shout out about the passing of Tom Wolfe , those white suits! He spent some time with Kesey and the Pranksters to write this one.I always think of Neal Cassady the link between the Beats and the Pranksters, out of his mind driving the bus.Yass ,Yass.
An all-time favorite has passed. Gosh, how I loved this book! So immersive and immediate - living the San Francisco counter-culture scene - Hanging out with gods of literature as well as the Hell‘s Angels; traveling the country and creating magic, mischief, and mayhem.
pickRIP
I just read on twitter that Tom Wolfe died at the age of 87. 😪
#thisorthat @Kimberlone not a neat as yours but there you go
I feel like I should have read this book when I was going through my beat phase and reading new journalism from the 1960s for the first time. I meant to. I may have enjoyed it more back then because so much felt like a revelation. I'm enjoying it so far though.
FURTHUR: "A school bus...glowing orange, green, magenta, lavender, chlorine blue, every fluorescent pastel imaginable in thousands of designs, both large and small, like a cross between Fernand Leger and Dr. Strange, roaring together and vibrating off each other as if somebody had given Hieronymous Bosch fifty buckets of day-glo paint and a 1939 International Harvester schoolbus and told him to go to it." #photoadaynov16 #planestrainsautomobiles
Art is not eternal.
#booktober #textonlycovers
(Oh yes. I was a teenage hippie.™)
panThis book was a slog, but I persevered for a reading challenge I'm doing, and also because I do feel it's a cultural marker. My summary: Ken Kesey is an egotistical jerk, leading a cult-like group called the Merry Pranksters. They take a scary amount of drugs and ramble around in a disorganized manner in a psychedelic school bus. Nothing gets accomplished. Book is also way too long, with an annoying writing style trying too hard to be clever.
I am trying so hard to read this book, but it's going slowly. I guess I have finally reached the age when I have no patience with these people. Also they need to get off my lawn. 😜
pickI love seeing how the Beats flowed into the Hippies and the weirdness it all entailed. Reading it before bed is sure to bring dreams fit for a Day-Glo Freud.
panNot my era, hated the writing, too long, boring. I guess if that was your bag then it could be interesting but I just didn't get it.
pickFuelling my counterculture desires since 2008.
#TBRTakedown January 2024 3mo