Book Notes

Two Washington Post Book World essays caught my eye recently: Jonathan Karp's spot on look at the "disposable book" and Jonathan Yardley's reconsideration of a book that is the opposite of disposable, Hunter S. Thompson's epochal Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I read fear and Loathing when I was in college, when I'd bet most people first discover it, and I return to it every so often simply because it is so alive and vibrant and hilarious and genre-defining.