Richard Rudgley

Wildest Dreams Richard Rudgley

This is a drug anthology with a difference. Whilst the usual suspects are here - Huxley, Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson and Irvine Welsh among them - there are many surprise inclusions such as film stars like Errol Flynn who fancied himself as the new De Quincey and Cary Grant who simply fancied LSD. Smashing the myth that drug culture all began in the sixties Rudgley provides a smorgasbord with dishes from the first century AD onwards and from drug cultures across the globe from Thailand to Haiti. Throughout history, drugs have inspired love and fear in almost equal proportions; no account of these substances can be called complete that seeks only to curse or praise them. This anthology is a microcosm that seeks to reflect the diverse worlds that come into being through the interplay of drugs and their users. There are individual sections for the most prominent drugs - cannabis, the narcotics, LSD as well as chapters for the lesser-known substances, such as nutmeg and crocodile dung. As such, Wildest Dreams attempts to represent the complex history of human interactions with psychoactive drugs in all its diversity. 'A book which manages to be erudite without being boring, and which keeps readers coming back for another fix without trivialising its subject' - Scene 'Wildest Dreams is as strong on anthropological exotica - hallucinogenic snuff, zombie poisons and so on - as it is on comedy' - Daily Telegraph 'This anthology suggests there is possibly something profound to be found and explored during the detachment from rationality that drugs allow us; that from the wildest dreams, we can glean insights by which to change our lives and our societies' - Glasgow Herald 'A couple of gems...are Cary Grant's encounters with LSD and Errol Flynn's morphine memories' - Time Out 'An informative and enjoyable read for newcomers to the world of drugs and its aficionados too' - The Times