Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III

An Amazon Best Book of November 2016: Most people with passing knowledge of San Francisco and the 60s are familiar with the main players: the Grateful Dead, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Hells Angels, et al, but how many know of August Owsley Stanley III, aka Owsley, aka Bear? The grandson of a Kentucky senator, Owsley found his way to California, discovered drugs, and promptly blew his mind at one of Kesey’s Acid Tests. He taught himself chemistry and reverse-engineered Sandoz-grade LSD, manufacturing a million doses (and millions of dollars) stashed around Bay Area and inside the brains of countless hippies and failed seekers. After a bust and a stint in prison, Bear pivoted to cutting-edge, drug-inspired studios and sound systems for the Dead, sitting behind their soundboard and archiving hundreds of their legendary live shows. And while the nickname has several possible origins, he was definitely a bear to deal with, at one point or another burning almost every bridge. While it’s not surprising that a psychedelic polymath is a bit of an enigma, Robert Greenfield is a writer atypically qualified to tell his story. A onetime editor at Rolling Stone and the author of books on the Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia, and Timothy Leary, Greenfield digs deep into the past, using the testimony of eyewitnesses both living and dead to draw this strange, influential character to the fore, adding an unexpected interesting chapter to a tale that’s otherwise over-told. --Jon Foro, The Amazon Book Review