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Fruitboot
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Books with drugs in them?
#5558986 - 04/26/06 02:57 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Lol, that's my best way to describe the kind of books I'm looking for. I'm looking for books that are "real life" and are based around drugs, or drugs have a heavy influence on what happens in the book. Maybe something like Requim for a Dream?
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ivi


Registered: 01/30/03
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5559209 - 04/26/06 03:50 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I don't know, Charles Baudelaire?
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OneMoreRobot3021


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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5559287 - 04/26/06 04:27 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Just read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, and life will be ok.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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gema
Freedom from the Known

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Naked Lunch by Burroughs anything by Jack Kerouac (excellent writer) Brave New World by Huxley (nonfiction)-all time fav
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Birds_Can_Swim
Fish Can Fly

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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5560212 - 04/26/06 08:34 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman
The Knockout Artist by Harry Crews
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hoboblues

Registered: 03/26/06
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"go ask alice"
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otr317
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5560343 - 04/26/06 08:57 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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oh man, where to begin. it's not a short list.
anything by William Burroughs: "Junkie" would be a good place to start, because jumping right into "Naked Lunch" will likely just make you want to take a shower. His son, William Burroughs Jr., also wrote about his addiction in his book "Speed".
Keroauc's "On the Road" isn't necessarily "drug literature" but certainly has a good amount of drug use and it's a great book. another one of my favorites by Kerouac is "Tristeza" which is a short stream-of-consciousness novella about kerouac's experience in mexico with a beautiful, tragic, heroin addicted prostitute. You'll find no shortage of drug influence in the Beat Generation stuff, which I think was a great era in American lit, so check it out.
Most things by Phillip K. Dick, "A Scanner Darkly" in particular.
Aldous Huxley's "A Brave New World" with it's soma is a famous example. Opposite it in sentiment is his later work, "Island", about a mushroom fueled utopia. if you haven't read "The Doors of Perception" yet, make sure to pick that up too, as well as "The Perennial Philosophy".
Obviously Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" being the well known example but there's so much more, from the journalist work for Rolling Stone and elsewhere to the more obscure novels. Check out "Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga". And search for another old Rolling Stones writer, Lester Bangs.
if you're looking for something older, Dicken's "Mystery of Edwin Drood" deals with opium addiction, as do some works by Oscar Wilde in particular "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Jean Cocteau's "Opium" and Buadelaire's "Artificial Paradises" come to mind too.
there's a ton of books about ganja, some of the early propoganda from the 20's and 30's makes for funny reading.
a lot of writing exists from the 70's and 80's about coke use and dealing, but most is pretty fucking depressing in my opinion and not the best of literature aesthetically. If you're curious about it I can drudge some stuff up but I can't remember titles and authors offhand.
When it comes to psychedelics, Terrence McKenna's "True Hallucinations" is one of my favorite, it chronicles he and his brother's quest for 'huasca in the amazon basin. Really, a lot of McKenna's non-narrative work makes for great reading too, regardless of what you think about his theories. "Food of the Gods", "The Archaic Revival", his work with timewave and the I-ching, all worthwhile. Timothy Leary's "High Priest" is good to, as are alot of his other works, all nonfictional/non-narrative. If you're interested in Leary there's a book out that I really liked called "Timothy Leary: Outside Looking In", it's a collection of writings about Tim by friends and family that was assembled after his death; alot of cool stuff there. Ironically, I haven't read the most famous of psychedelic writings "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe. I think the only fiction aside from Huxley involving psychedelics is some Cold-War era type shit, but I can't recall any names.
you have to understand that the type of book your asking for is a whole genre of literature that began in the 1821 with DeQuincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" and has flourished since. Drugs have had a profound effect on western art, both directly and indirectly, and it follows that there are hundreds upon hundreds of books influenced by drugs or written about drug experiences, poetry not included (god knows how many more if we include verse).
I can't even begin to list all the writers that have been influenced by intoxicants, not just fringe writers either, but many of the most prominent and masterful writers and thinkers of western culture. Coleridge, Kant, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Yeats, Freud, Heidegger, Proust, James, Goethe; the list goes on and on.
if a discussion of the actual origins of drug literature and the evolution therof interests you, definitely check out "The Road of Excess: Writers on Drugs" by Marcus Boon. The man's a Harvard professor who really knows his shit and makes an interesting presentation of it at the same time. A lot of fascinating stuff in that book, and obviously loads of references to just the kind of novels you're looking for.
-------------------- "I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" -Ernest Hemingway
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otr317
in search of...


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Quote:
Birds_Can_Swim said: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
i second that.
sorry about the length of my post, i get going about lit and it's game over
-------------------- "I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" -Ernest Hemingway
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Birds_Can_Swim
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: otr317]
#5560447 - 04/26/06 09:19 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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I suppose I should also include Daniel Cooper
There's some heavy drug use, especially in Try and God Jr.
Of course, it's also riff with gay incest/rape/bashing, if you're into that sort of thing (I'm dead convinced the dude's a closet pedophile)
-------------------- There is no valid reason why you should be reading this
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Catalysis
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5560516 - 04/26/06 09:33 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Diary of a Drug Fiend
Aleister Crowley's first novel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_a_Drug_Fiend
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otr317
in search of...


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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Catalysis]
#5560603 - 04/26/06 09:54 PM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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i don't know.... Crowley's a little too didactic for my taste... that early 1900's "cautionary tale" type shit you know?
-------------------- "I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" -Ernest Hemingway
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TonguesInAspic
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: otr317]
#5569658 - 04/29/06 06:11 AM (17 years, 9 months ago) |
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Go Ask Alice was a compulsory read at my school last year. I read that it has been altered by DEA and so forth to scare kids of drugs but who knows.
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Delta9Hippie
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
-------------------- "During evolutionary time, the avenues of possible progress have become progressively restricted, until today only one remains...Man...has been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all, the business of evolution." Life begins the day you start a garden. Check out my trade list in My Journal...
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Kid_Kaoz
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Delta9Hippie]
#5570521 - 04/29/06 02:29 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Flashbacks by Timothy Leary is a must-read.
-------------------- Life is how you live it.
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monamine
dork


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Quote:
TonguesInAspic said: Go Ask Alice was a compulsory read at my school last year. I read that it has been altered by DEA and so forth to scare kids of drugs but who knows.
Go Ask Alice is a work of fiction. It's totally fabricated.
I take it you guys mean books that have drug themes but aren't directly about drugs themselves? Because if not I can go look on my bookshelf and type for the next three hours.
Mostly anything Burroughs. Irving Welsh.
I really like Can't Find My Way HomeYeah it's a book about the history of drugs in the twentienth century, but it's not like Psychedelics Encyclopedia or something like that though. Hippieis another recent non fiction that's pretty good too.
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zappaisgod
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: monamine]
#5571043 - 04/29/06 05:04 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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How to Stop Time by Ann Marlowe
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fung_us_among_us


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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: zappaisgod]
#5571233 - 04/29/06 06:02 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Bret Easton Ellis wrote a couple with quite a few drug references, mainly coke but occasionally other drugs.
i think he went through a few addictions at some point too, but i don't know much about them.
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Fruitboot
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Thanks for all the books to go look through. I think I'm going to try to find a copy of Junkie at the local library.
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zappa
please excusethe filth, yourmom was justhere


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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5576662 - 05/01/06 09:31 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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i found a real-life pot leaf in one of my text books at school...does that count?
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Birds_Can_Swim
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: zappa]
#5577450 - 05/01/06 02:17 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I just remembered
There's a scene in some Gail Tsukiyama book where they smoke opium
But GT defines mediocrity, so i can't really recommend her
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StonedShroom
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: Fruitboot]
#5582970 - 05/02/06 08:24 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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these all look like good reads
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Taco Chef
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Re: Books with drugs in them? [Re: StonedShroom]
#5586425 - 05/03/06 03:59 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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robert anton wilson: cosmic trigger or the illuminatus trilogy
hunter: fear and loathing
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