Hell's Angels: Penguin Essentials: 14

Journalist, maverick, rebel and author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson offers another novel of American counterculture in Hell''s Angels, beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range.

''A phalanx of motorcycles came roaring over the hill from the west... the noise was like a landslide, or a wing of bombers passing over. Even knowing the Angels I couldn''t quite handle what I was seeing. It was like Genghis Khan, Morgan''s Raiders, the Wild One and the Rape of Nanking all at once.''

In September, 1964 a cavalcade of motorbikes ripped through the city of Monterey, California. It was a trip destined to make Hell''s Angels household names across America, infamous for their violent, drunken rampages and feared for the destruction left in their wake.

Enter Hunter S. Thompson, the master of counter-culture journalism who alone had the ability and stature to ride with the Angels on their terms. In this brilliant and hair-raising expose, he journeys with the last outlaws of the American frontier.

A mixture of journalism, story-telling and sheer bravado, Hell''s Angels is Hunter S. Thompson at full throttle.

''Excellent documentary non-fiction'' Time Out

''The maverick voice of American counterculture'' Guardian

''There are only two adjectives writers care about any more - "brilliant" and "outrageous" - and Hunter has a freehold on both of them'' Tom Wolfe

''The book that made Thompson''s name'' Loaded

Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937. He began his writing career as a sports columnist in Florida and went on to work on newspapers and magazines in New York, San Juan and Rio de Janeiro. His articles appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the author of a number of books, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ''72, The Great Shark Hunt, Generation of Swine, The Curse of Lono, Songs of the Doomed, Better Than Sex, The Proud Highway and The Rum Diary. Hunter S. Thompson died in 2005.