Book Beat

Born in Louisville, Ky. in 1937, Hunter S. Thompson spent his lifetime pushing journalism and writing in a new direction, living a provocative and action-packed lifestyle. In "Gonzo,” Jann Wenner, the founder, editor, and publisher of "Rolling Stone,” and Corey Seymour, a writer and editor who collaborated with Thompson at the magazine in the ’90s, present a 500-page oral biography from interviews with Thompson’s friends, family and colleagues.

Gonzo journalism, the style of storytelling Thompson made popular, weaves facts into a fictional narrative, often told from the viewpoint of the reporter to use emotion and personal experience to convey an underlying message. More than 100 confidants of the wild and tormented journalist’s social circle contribute to this portrait, from Jack Nicholson and artist Ralph Steadman to Pat Buchanan and Hell’s Angels leader Sonny Barger. Other "voices” in the mix include his ex-wife of 17 years, Sandy Thompson (now Sondi Wright), his son Juan, and old neighborhood friends, including Porter Bigg and Neville Blakemore.

The biography, which begins with an introduction by Johnny Depp — who brought Thompson to life in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” — reveals this inner circle’s thoughts and perspectives on the eccentric journalist’s love affairs with women, substances and booze, and guns and explosives, as well as his suicide in 2005.

Traveling back to the 13th century, Laurence Bergreen’s "Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu” is a portrait of another man with extraordinary adventures of his own. Bergreen is the author of other definitive biographies, including ones on explorer Ferdinand Magellan, author James Agee, musician Louis Armstrong, gangster Al Capone and composer Irving Berlin.

Marco Polo is the most famous European to explore Asia, and seeing that kids scream "Marco!” and "Polo!” in pools all around the world, he’s presumably one of the most celebrated explorers in our world’s history — a bridge between East and West whose travels along the Silk Road and within Kublai Khan’s Mongol Empire are mythical.

Bergreen introduces the reader to a young and naïve Polo, part of a well-off Venetian family, who sets off on a journey to the East with his father and uncle in 1271. He later becomes an ambassador to Kublai’s court, living among the Mongols and other tribes, discovering fabled cities, and adopting some of the powerful emperor’s more sensual pursuits. When he returns to Venice a quarter of a century later, he brings wealth and advanced inventions, but also fabulous tales and a penchant for greed.

The most intriguing material is about Polo’s collaboration with Rustichello da Pisa, the Italian romance writer with whom he concocted his embellished autobiography, "The Travels of Marco Polo,” while they were in prison together in Genoa.

This Week’s Picks Off the Shelf:

"Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson” by Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour

$29, Little, Brown & Company

"Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu” by Laurence Bergreen

$29, Knopf Publishing Group