has ALL you need!

A community for book lovers to create their own bookshelves, share and explore books.

• 1 person find this helpful

  • 

  • Read prior to a trip to Alaska. Stayed at the Earthsong lodge which is on the road to where the final journey in the book takes place.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― LittleBird said on Feb 20, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

• .

  • 

  • This was an interesting book about not only Chris McCandless's tragic and unnecessary death, but about how someone's romantic view of nature can blind them to its harsh reality.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― krin5292 said on Nov 20, 2009 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

• .

  • 

  • The modern day Everrett Reuss.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― SWReader said on Nov 19, 2009 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

• .

  • First Edition

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― db's.books said on Aug 4, 2009 | Add your feedback

• .

  • 

  • First I saw the movie, which I had particularly liked, then I started the book in English. Many parts get rather technical and since I'm not a mountaineer expert, sometimes I got kind of lost during the read. Even after reading the book I have mixed feeling about Chris McCandless, but still I find t ... Continue

    First I saw the movie, which I had particularly liked, then I started the book in English. Many parts get rather technical and since I'm not a mountaineer expert, sometimes I got kind of lost during the read. Even after reading the book I have mixed feeling about Chris McCandless, but still I find the story worth reading.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― Benedetta (bscardovi) said on Dec 29, 2008 | Add your feedback

• .

  • 

  • Great book, great movie, great soundtrack. Very enjoyable read. Seeing the movie really helps to see what it was like.

    

    Is this helpful?

• ― Dave Sanders said on Oct 17, 2008 | Add your feedback

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.

Groups with this in collection

NY Times Notable Book Club (332)

50 Book Challenge! (448)

• non fictionmysterybiography3dsNonfiction11thnon-fictionwildernessadventurealaska
• See all (22)