Listen free for 30 days
-
Songs of the Doomed
- More Notes on the Death of the American Dream
- Narrated by: Hunter S. Thompson
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Americas
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £11.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Fear and Loathing, Book 1
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (inspired by a friend of Thompson) are quickly diverted to search for the American dream. Their quest is fueled by nearly every drug imaginable and quickly becomes a surreal experience that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. But there is more to this hilarious tale than reckless behavior, for underneath the hallucinogenic facade is a stinging criticism of American greed and consumerism.
-
-
Much better than the clip suggests.
- By Roo on 27-02-19
-
The Rum Diary
- A Novel
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s.
-
-
Sounds very amateur
- By Radost on 29-12-11
-
Freak Kingdom
- Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism
- By: Timothy Denevi
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hunter S. Thompson is often misremembered as a wise-cracking, drug-addled cartoon character. This book reclaims him for what he truly was: a fearless opponent of corruption and fascism, one who sacrificed his future well-being to fight against it, rewriting the rules of journalism and political satire in the process. This skillfully told and dramatic story shows how Thompson saw through Richard Nixon's treacherous populism and embarked on a life-defining campaign to stop it.
-
Stories I Tell Myself
- Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson
- By: Juan F. Thompson
- Narrated by: Juan F. Thompson
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hunter S. Thompson, "smart hillbilly"; boy of the South; born and bred in Louisville, Kentucky; son of an insurance salesman and a stay-at-home mom; public school-educated; jailed at 17 on a bogus petty robbery charge; member of the US Air Force (airman second class); copy boy for Time; writer for The National Observer; et cetera.
-
-
Not what I expected
- By Colin Balzli on 28-10-17
-
Visionary
- The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness (The Definitive Edition of Supernatural)
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 21 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Less than 50,000 years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as "the greatest riddle in human history," all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In Visionary, Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious "before-and-after moment" and to discover the truth about the influences that gave birth to modern human mind.
-
-
Unbelievably brilliant!
- By chris on 29-04-22
-
The Pardon
- Jack Swyteck, Book 1
- By: James Grippando
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jack Swyteck's estranged father becomes governor, Jack's career as a defense attorney becomes a deadly conflict of interests. As governor, his father refuses Jack's last-minute request for a stay, and Jack's client is executed. Later, Jack is accused of a murder he didn't commit and the governor faces political ruin, the climax of a revenge campaign waged by someone connected to Jack's former client. Neither father nor son can help the other without harming himself.
-
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Fear and Loathing, Book 1
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (inspired by a friend of Thompson) are quickly diverted to search for the American dream. Their quest is fueled by nearly every drug imaginable and quickly becomes a surreal experience that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. But there is more to this hilarious tale than reckless behavior, for underneath the hallucinogenic facade is a stinging criticism of American greed and consumerism.
-
-
Much better than the clip suggests.
- By Roo on 27-02-19
-
The Rum Diary
- A Novel
- By: Hunter S. Thompson
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s.
-
-
Sounds very amateur
- By Radost on 29-12-11
-
Freak Kingdom
- Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism
- By: Timothy Denevi
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hunter S. Thompson is often misremembered as a wise-cracking, drug-addled cartoon character. This book reclaims him for what he truly was: a fearless opponent of corruption and fascism, one who sacrificed his future well-being to fight against it, rewriting the rules of journalism and political satire in the process. This skillfully told and dramatic story shows how Thompson saw through Richard Nixon's treacherous populism and embarked on a life-defining campaign to stop it.
-
Stories I Tell Myself
- Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson
- By: Juan F. Thompson
- Narrated by: Juan F. Thompson
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hunter S. Thompson, "smart hillbilly"; boy of the South; born and bred in Louisville, Kentucky; son of an insurance salesman and a stay-at-home mom; public school-educated; jailed at 17 on a bogus petty robbery charge; member of the US Air Force (airman second class); copy boy for Time; writer for The National Observer; et cetera.
-
-
Not what I expected
- By Colin Balzli on 28-10-17
-
Visionary
- The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness (The Definitive Edition of Supernatural)
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 21 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Less than 50,000 years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as "the greatest riddle in human history," all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In Visionary, Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious "before-and-after moment" and to discover the truth about the influences that gave birth to modern human mind.
-
-
Unbelievably brilliant!
- By chris on 29-04-22
-
The Pardon
- Jack Swyteck, Book 1
- By: James Grippando
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jack Swyteck's estranged father becomes governor, Jack's career as a defense attorney becomes a deadly conflict of interests. As governor, his father refuses Jack's last-minute request for a stay, and Jack's client is executed. Later, Jack is accused of a murder he didn't commit and the governor faces political ruin, the climax of a revenge campaign waged by someone connected to Jack's former client. Neither father nor son can help the other without harming himself.
-
Legs
- By: William Kennedy
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Legs inaugurated William Kennedy's cycle of novels set in Albany, New York. True to both life and myth Legs evokes the flamboyant career of the legendary gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, who was finally murdered in Albany. Through the equivocal eyes of Diamond's attorney, Marcus Gorman (who scraps a promising political career for the elemental excitement of the criminal underworld), we watch as Legs and his showgirl mistress, Kiki Roberts, blaze their gaudy trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s.
-
Orangutan
- By: Colin Broderick
- Narrated by: Colin Broderick
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few people who have been slave to an addiction as vicious, as destructive, and as unrelenting as Colin Broderick's have lived to tell their tale. Fewer still have emerged from the darkest depths of alcoholism - from the perpetual fistfights and muggings, car crashes and blackouts - to tell the harrowing truth about the modern Irish immigrant experience.
-
-
5* Broderick tells his crazy rollercoaster story
- By Paul McCormac on 13-07-20
-
Running the Light
- By: Sam Tallent, Kyle Kinane - foreword
- Narrated by: Greg Chaille, Tracy Chaille, Trae Crowder, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Debauched, divorced, and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father - comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: What happens when the opportunity doesn't come - or worse - it comes and goes?
-
-
Fantastic book, marred a little by the narrators.
- By KieranCork on 26-04-21
-
Bourdain
- In Stories
- By: Laurie Woolever
- Narrated by: Laurie Woolever, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain’s life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s long-time assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony’s orbit.
-
-
Moving and honest memorial
- By Louise Leather on 01-12-21
-
Grand Central Winter, Expanded Second Edition
- Stories from the Street
- By: Lee Stringer
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the underground tunnels below Grand Central Terminal, Lee Stringer - homeless and drug-addicted for 11 years - found a pencil to run through his crack pipe. One day he used it to write. Soon writing became a habit that won out over drugs, and before long Stringer had created one of the most powerful urban memoirs of our time. With humane wisdom and a biting wit, Stringer chronicles the unraveling of his seemingly secure existence as a marketing executive and his odyssey of survival on the streets of New York.
-
-
Superb reading
- By P. B. Hall on 28-02-20
-
On the Road
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: Matt Dillon
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sal Paradise, a young innocent, joins his hero Dean Moriarty, a traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat, on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American dream.
-
-
Read this book and explode across the stars
- By Gabe Fleming (Audible staff) on 26-05-16
-
Hell's Angel
- The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club
- By: Sonny Barger
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrated by the visionary founding member, Hell's Angel provides a fascinating all-access pass to the secret world of the notorious Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. Sonny Barger recounts the birth of the original Oakland Hell's Angels and the four turbulent decades that followed. Hell's Angel also chronicles the way the HAMC revolutionized the look of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle and built what has become a worldwide bike-riding fraternity, a beacon for freedom-seekers the world over.
-
-
brilliant
- By Emiel on 11-11-20
-
No Lesser Plea
- Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi, Book 1
- By: Robert K. Tanenbaum
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Roger "Butch" Karp has been around New York long enough to realize that the judicial system can be dirty and cynical. But he still believes in justice. So when a vicious sociopath tries to dodge a brutal murder charge by convincing the court he is incompetent to stand trial, Karp teams up with firecracker Assistant DA Marlene Ciampi to unleash the full force of their relentless energy, hardboiled wit, and passion for the truth to put the killer away for good. They will accept no lesser plea.
-
Harbour Nocturne
- By: Joseph Wambaugh
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In San Pedro, Los Angeles, one of the world's busiest harbours, an unlikely pair of lovers is caught up in terror. When Dinko Babich, a young longshoreman, delivers Lita Medina, a young Mexican dancer, from the harbour to a Hollywood nightclub, his life is forever changed as an unexpectedly tender and moving love story develops. Comedy and tragedy are intertwined in the everyday life of the cops and residents of San Pedro Harbor.
-
The Revolt of the Cockroach People
- By: Oscar Zeta Acosta
- Narrated by: Henry Levya
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The further adventures of "Dr. Gonzo" as he defends the "cucarachas" - the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge.
-
-
a life changing book
- By Anonymous User on 13-04-21
-
No Encore for the Donkey
- By: Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Misanthrope. Iconoclast. Apostate. Drunk. Many words have been used to describe Doug Stanhope, but rarely has “hopeful” been one of them. However, heading into 2016, Stanhope peered through the apocalyptic fog and saw a forecast that was more rainbows than acid rain: His first book was set for release, his new stand-up special was in the can, and he was about to film a television pilot with his friend and confidant Johnny Depp. The only thing that could stop Doug was himself, and that’s exactly what he did.
-
-
Emotionally raw christ I wish I didn't have to wri
- By J. Crone on 06-12-20
-
Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Signature Performance: Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.
-
-
Haunting and beautiful
- By S. Goodyear on 13-04-16
Summary
In this third and most extraordinary volume of the Gonzo Papers, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson recalls high and hideous moments in his 30 years in the passing lane - and no one is safe from his hilarious, remarkably astute social commentary.
With Thompson's trademark insight and passion about the state of American politics and culture, Songs of the Doomed charts the long, strange trip from Kennedy to Quayle in Thompson's freewheeling, inimitable style. Spanning four decades - 1950 to 1990 - Thompson is at the top of his form while fleeing New York for Puerto Rico, riding with the Hell's Angels, investigating Las Vegas sleaze, grappling with the "Dukakis problem", and finally, detailing his infamous lifestyle bust, trial documents, and Fourth Amendment battle with the law. These tales - often sleazy, brutal, and crude - are only the tip of what Jack Nicholson called "the most baffling human iceberg of our time".
Songs of the Doomed is vintage Thompson - a brilliant, brazen, bawdy compilation of the greatest sound bites of Gonzo journalism from the past 30 years.
More from the same
What listeners say about Songs of the Doomed
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Perry King
- 27-02-20
A great audio book overall
it was very good though I found the changing of narrators problematic, the first chapter or two were also heard to understand due to the quality of the recording
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Michael Friedman
- 17-04-18
Inconsistent but well worth it
Hey, it's Doctor Thompson. It starts unevenly with some fairly incomprehensible meandering thoughts from his unpublished Jellyfish and Rum Diaries. But when he gets to politics and news, he's just about the best. His thoughts as a reporter in Saigon at the end of the war, his musings with a parolee in a library at night, his coverage of Rozanne Pulitzer divorce trial and observations of the wealthy of Palm Beach, Florida and his musings on the 1972 presidential race are brilliant and show Thompson at the top of his game. It is worth slogging through the early fiction for the gems later on. And dedicating the book to the wonderful Rosalie Sorrels who died less than a year go, why that would bring a tear to anyone who ever heard her.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Bill Bleuel
- 09-05-12
Poor Production Sinks Great Material
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
No one.
Any additional comments?
Shoddy production (including indecipherable narration by Thompson himself) and shifting narrators (one with a distractingly thick accent) obviously unfamiliar with Thompson's work and style make this production an insult. Save your money.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- fubanger
- 20-12-19
NOT read by Hunter
Hunter appears throughout but by no means is the narrator. The material is genuine but falsely advertised.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Cris
- 11-01-22
Bummer
I own this book and feel cheated by this audio edition. EXTREMELY short. Bad narrators, including one who can barely read. Must be Thompsons friends. I love hearing Thompson, and his reading of "Electricity" is the indisputable highlight of this product. The background music just sucks and is totally distracting. It's an utter shame this is the only audible book with Thompson narrating anything, and that is literally the only reason to buy it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Friedrich Treffer
- 28-07-20
Awesome
I absolutely love this audiobook! All the different narrators fit perfectly and the short story’s are incredible.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Debra DeBeers
- 31-08-19
Hunter being Hunter
Rambling typical Hunter. Talking in stream-of-consciouness style with no point in mind. Nice to hear his voice again, loved the music interspersed throughout. Also loved his detailed descriptions of the effects of the different drugs tried .He was fearless around new and unknown drugs, always taking a massive dose and mixing with other substances and still able to function somewhat.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 23-03-19
amazing
this is perfect for anyoje who likes huntet thomprson. sorry im drunk but this is greay anyone who says otherwise is a dirty swine
1 person found this helpful