Preview
  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

  • By: Tom Wolfe
  • Narrated by: Luke Daniels
  • Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,141 ratings)

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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

By: Tom Wolfe
Narrated by: Luke Daniels
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Publisher's summary

Tom Wolfe - one of the 20th century’s foremost voices in cultural criticism - went from local news reporter to international icon in 1968, with the publication of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Now voiced with vivacity and vigor by Audible Hall of Fame narrator Luke Daniels, the non-fiction swan-dive delves into the world of hippies, hedonism, and everything in between.

To most, Ken Kesey is best known as the author of the celebrated novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But for Tom Wolfe, Ken was the leader of the Merry Pranksters, a band of counter-culture bohemians who traveled cross-country in a far-out, brightly painted school bus they dubbed Furthur. The Pranksters were known for drug-fueled escapades, none more famous than the so-called “Acid Test”, wherein a party full of people would take LSD in an effort to escape the banality of reality and connect on a higher, subconscious plane. As Wolfe follows the group down their nonconformist rabbit hole, he’s led on a wild trip through the backwaters of the 1960s, encountering the era’s living legends - from The Grateful Dead to Allen Ginsberg - along the way.

©1968 Tom Wolfe (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Our favorite moments from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Just a little routine ‘messing up the minds’ of the citizenry.
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The answer can be found in one short word, my friends.
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All the senses open wide.
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  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
  • Just a little routine ‘messing up the minds’ of the citizenry.
  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
  • The answer can be found in one short word, my friends.
  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
  • All the senses open wide.
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The subject is a seemingly esoteric one, many of the details are blood-chilling and nauseating, but the book is undeniably a major journalistic contribution to the future analysis of our own and America's strange period of this century.

- The Guardian
Tom Wolfe

About the Author

Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Tom Wolfe is perhaps best known for his work as a trailblazer in the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and as the author of searing best-sellers such as The Bonfire of the Vanities. Originally a reporter, Wolfe worked in news for ten years, writing for publications including The New York Herald Tribune, Esquire, New York Magazine, and The Washington Post. In 1965, Wolfe published his first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, a collection of essays about the freewheeling 1960s, launching him into the public sphere as a whip-smart and madly inventive cultural critic. Several best-selling nonfiction publications followed, including The Right Stuff, The Pump House Gang, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, works that introduced popular slang—including statusphere, the right stuff, The Me Decade, and good ol’ boy—into the English lexicon.

Wolfe released his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, in 1987 to much praise; the book remained on The New York Times best-seller list for over a year after its initial publication. Three of his books have been adapted into blockbuster films including The Last American Hero (1973), The Right Stuff (1983), and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). Wolfe was also the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the National Book Award, the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, the National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Foundation’s 2010 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A writer with a keen eye for style and all things sensational, Wolfe was known for not only his attention-grabbing writing but also his eye-catching fashion sense—he wore his trademark white suit for decades, donning his ivory tie and matching fedora no matter the season. He died in 2018 in New York City, leaving behind a legacy of deft, neon prose and razor-sharp satire.

Luke Daniels

About the Performer

Luke Daniels is the award-winning performer of more than 500 audiobooks. Known for his imaginative story telling and dynamic characterizations, he has always been a listener favorite. In 2018, Luke was inducted into Audible’s Narrator Hall of Fame. With a background in classical theater, film, and education, Luke has performed and taught around the country.

Featured Article: The 20 Best History Audiobooks You Never Heard in School


While history is by definition the study of the past, no subject tells us more about the present, or is as exciting to follow in contemporary times. The range of subgenres within history writing is huge. Some authors cover a massive scope, while others zoom in to examine tiny, overlooked elements in a new way. Unlike your history class of old, these selections don’t demand memorization of names and dates. Read on for the best in our catalog.

What listeners say about The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

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  • Overall
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    3 out of 5 stars

Great Reading

I loved Luke Daniels reading of this story. He really brought it to life and in a way vastly superior to what my own reading of the text would be. The story itself is an interesting story of a failed experiment in changing the world. If I could, I would certainly want to be on-the-bus and in-the-movie of the Pranksters.

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19 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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trippity trip man

When I first read this novel in the 70s my dull as ditchwater internal interpreter could not make heads or tails of the narrative, and I was suitably not impressed. Such a different experience listening to Luke Daniels' inspired performance, so enjoyable. And there's a history lesson in there too, if you listen hard enough. Glad I listened.

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2 people found this helpful

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Way-back machine to to the Acid Generation

Tom Wolfe's prose is nonparallel. This is a book that is better as an audible rendition than in print. The performance is awesome. You see the story through Ken Kesey's eyes. It takes you to the time and place so you can relive the events. No, I'm not on an acid trip as I write this; it's just that good. An immersive experience.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great narration

Contrary to the opinion of others I thought the dramatic narration style was fitting to the absolutely nuts story.

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Extremely well-narrated

This is maybe the most effective audiobook I’ve yet experienced. As a text, the book is such a flurry of description, mood and energy that it can get exhausting. Here, the narrator embraces Wolfe’s manic prose in a way that carried me along and made me love the language. The book is wild, vivid and unruly, and this production helped make it feel like a lived experience.

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63 people found this helpful

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Have been waiting & waiting for this book

Too bad it took Toms death to bring back so many of his works to the open catalog. The interpretation took some getting used to but generally worked

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Blow your gourds

10/10 HIGHLY recommend. Read before you drop. Then Read After. Must’ve been a blast collecting the stories.

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Outstanding Performance!!

The book that brings the psychedelic hippy age into day-glo clarity. While the book is a classic and captures the essence of the Kesey acid tests, what makes it is the reading by Luke Daniels. His reading makes you FEEL the book. You are tripping as he reads it. Excellent!

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22 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Good, but dated

Great writing, but it now seems a little dated. I got tired of the same aimless antics of these acid heads.

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I passed the test!

Incredible narration and story. Tom Wolfe put me WITH the Pranksters. Unbelievable storytelling! Thank you Tom!

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