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Into the Wild | 
 enlarge | Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Villard
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
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Rating:  1219 reviews
Sales Rank: 12417
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 067942850X
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.98045
EAN: 9780679428503
ASIN: 067942850X
Publication Date: January 13, 1996
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Amazon.com Review
What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992. Described by friends and relatives as smart, literate, compassionate, and funny, did McCandless simply read too much Thoreau and Jack London and lose sight of the dangers of heading into the wilderness alone? Krakauer, whose own adventures have taken him to the perilous heights of Everest, provides some answers by exploring the pull the outdoors, seductive yet often dangerous, has had on his own life.
Product Description
In a compelling book that evokes the writings of Thoreau, Muir, and Jack London, Krakauer recounts the haunting and tragic mystery of 22-year-old Chris McCandless who disappeared in April 1992 into the Alaskan wilderness in search of a raw, transcendent experience. His emaciated corpse was discovered four months later. Maps. NPR sponsorship.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1214 more reviews...
Poorly Equipped Dreamer November 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's ok to be a dreamer. It's ok to want to 'find yourself.' It's really ok to hike and backpack. I've done it myself, but I would never, never enter a wilderness area without, at least, a topographical map. Chris McCandless' story is nothing short of tragic.
Jon Krakauer does a fine job of getting you into the mind of this doomed traveler while also taking you into the adventure and beauty of the wilderness.
 Beauty, goodness and hope. . . November 11, 2008
I'm saddened to see so many people writing with little or no compassion for Chris McCandless, and such a limited effort to understand his quest.
Most of us know what he was running from -- problems at home, a society struggling with issues of materialism and morality. But an understanding of what he was searching for -- inner peace, closeness with nature, a quiet and beautiful place in which to think -- eludes many of us, just as it eluded him.
It could be lovely, could it not? Wild strawberries spilling down the riverbank, red poppies flaming the hills, cobalt mountains loping along the sky, like waves in a gently rolling sea. I am blessed to live in such a place, where I can reflect and write in perfect solitude, and I appreciate the beautiful life I have. I live a little like he did, but without his extraordinary deprivation -- the berries, the bag of rice, no way (as he perceived it at that time) to get out.
Jon Krakauer mined this tragedy for the beauty, the goodness, and the hope that could be found in it -- and this bounty was rich! -- and I applaud his book and his wonderful writing, as I applaud the deeply moving film Sean Penn waited so patiently, for ten years, to create.
I agree with some of the points other reviewers have made -- that the particular venture Chris McCandless chose was ill-advised, that he had not adequately prepared for it, and that his family need not have been abandoned and left in the dark.
But we have all screwed up in our lives and hurt people around us, at least once, have we not? Well, I certainly have.
When other people use poor judgment and make mistakes, it's so easy to judge, to criticize, to close our minds. That's the easy way out, isn't it?
Whether we see Chris McCandless as a crazy kid, or as a courageous and intensely spiritual young man, we do know that he died afraid and alone. For that reason, if for no other, I think we need to reach for all the understanding and compassion we can give.
[...]
 Crappy book about a wonderful human November 6, 2008
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
Jon Krakauer, typewriter jockey, decided that in order to justify his wasted life to himself, that he would smear the image of such a beautiful human as the subject of this book, by writing a mocking, superficial account of something that he could never understand.
Instead of praising the kid's sense of adventure and compassion, he takes jabs at the kid for how "immature" and "thoughtless" he is ... well even though Krakauer's fat-a** is still sitting in cafes drinking lattes bought with the money earned from his books and films, the kid still OUTLIVED him. I doubt he's ever lived for a minute of his dull office-bound existence.
Save your money and read a real book about the wilderness ... maybe something by John Muir or Edward Abbey.
Dull October 31, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Why would I read a book that basically tells me the plot and resolution of the book on the cover? Way to keep readers engaged with the summary of the novel on the cover. I knew what happened without even opening the book, and when I was forced to read it, I found it quite dull and pointless.
I went to the woods .. October 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
That the force that is nature will ultimately change those of us who are enthralled by it. Its not surprising tht the protagnist in "Into the Wild" gives up so much to live primtively in the northern climes of Alaska .. its Thoreau revisited. The author never fails to please those who understand his messages.
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