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Editorial Review Product Description
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...
"Terrifying...Eloquent...A heart-rending drama wandering of human yearning."--The New York Times
"A narrative of arresting force.Anyone who ever fancied wandering off to face nature on its own harsh terms should give a look.It's gripping stuff."--The Washington Post
From the Audiobook Download edition.Amazon.com Review
"God, he was a smart kid..." So why did Christopher McCandless trade a bright future--a college education, material comfort, uncommon ability and charm--for death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? This is the question that Jon Krakauer's book tries to answer. While it doesn't—cannot—answer the question with certainty, Into the Wild does shed considerable light along the way. Not only about McCandless's "Alaskan odyssey," but also the forces that drive people to drop out of society and test themselves in other ways. Krakauer quotes Wallace Stegner's writing on a young man who similarly disappeared in the Utah desert in the 1930s: "At 18, in a dream, he saw himself ... wandering through the romantic waste places of the world. No man with any of the juices of boyhood in him has forgotten those dreams." Into the Wild shows that McCandless, while extreme, was hardly unique; the author makes the hermit into one of us, something McCandless himself could never pull off. By book's end, McCandless isn't merely a newspaper clipping, but a sympathetic, oddly magnetic personality. Whether he was "a courageous idealist, or a reckless idiot," you won't soon forget Christopher McCandless. ... Read more Customer Reviews (1346) 
Great read!
I watched the movie and was absolutely thrilled to get my hands on the book. Found some references to other books im currently reading. The two of them being War and Peace and Solitude. Author gives the facts and delivers a objective theory on how Chris M. really died.
Into The Wild Review
Into The Wild
By Jon Krakauer
The story of Christopher Johnson McCandless is truly inspiring, yet terrifying at the same time.Jon Krakauer does a great job in making the reader feel like he/she is actually living Christopher's eccentric adventure.You can feel the beauty of the amazing sights Christopher experienced, as well as the fear and the hunger.My favorite part of this book was when Christopher finds the abandoned bus in the Alaska interior and lives in the wilderness for four months.It is truly amazing how Christopher McCandles could touch the hearts of so many individuals in such a short amount of time.Although some may say Christopher McCandless is a crazy idiot, all readers including me, can relate to Chris because you realize that Chris was just a normal human being, just like us.Into The Wild is in many ways a mystery.The big question "Why did he do it?" will keep you thinking, even when you are not reading the book.Jon Krakauer does a great job in re-telling Christopher's story, but I feel that some chapters such as chapters 8 and 9 should be majorly shortened because of their irrelevance.I highly recommend this book, and then watch the movie.
Into the Wild left me out in the cold.
When I learned about the premise of this book I was thrilled, I had hopes of a wilderness adventure about self discovery and solitude. I was anxious to peer into the life of Chris, the protagonist. Unfortunately what I received was a poorly sorted accord of the this kids adventure that read more like a series of news articles than it did a story or a true account of what happened.
The book is an uneven ride, sometimes compelling, other times misguided, and overall not very impressionable. I thoroughly enjoyed some insights into his life, the numerous characters he met on his escapades, the relevant back stories that help paint us a portrait of this young man, however, it was never as cohesive as I hoped. At numerous times of the book I thought the author just didn't have enough to write about and the material presented just seemed like fillers. Also, while the two chapters were well written, the story of the authors expedition in Alaska served to me no relevance to the story other than to fill pages. Sure, it was a departure of the story to fulfill some insight to a mindset not unlike the protagonist, but for it to span two lengthy chapters in meticulous detail came off as a bit pretentious or that the author just wanted so badly to put his own adventures into words.
The book is painless to read, I'm not much of a hiker or outdoor adventurer so I'm sure some of his immaculately detailed descriptions went over my head, but that is just one of the few bright spots in this book. I have no doubt that others have read and loved the same book, but it clearly wasn't for me and left me unsatisfied.
Into the Wild Book Review
Into The Wild Book Review
Krakauer, Jon. 1996. Into The Wild. New York: Villard Books. xi +207
One might consider the tale of a young man venturing out into the unknown, unforgiving Alaskan bush hard to identify with. Jon Krakauer, however, captures the minds and hearts of the reader as he reveals the truth of a life well explored in his book Into The Wild. Though this novel was undoubtedly written for the hearts of those that are hungry for adventure, it is easy to say that even one as plain as the rest could get lost in this book. Following many other books written by Jon Krakauer such as Into thin Air, Where Men win Glory, and Eiger Dreams, this book is one that is similar in intrigue and adventure, but set apart in depth and meaning. Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc. New York, and as well as Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto published this book.
Krakauer begins the novel with a scene of Christopher McCandless's last contact with human kind, just before his steps out into the Alaskan Bush. Following the first chapter, Krakauer takes the reader through the scene of how they found the body of the deceased boy.The story of McCandless's life unfolds from there. Krakauer retraces the steps of the young boy, revealing the theories and reasons behind the journey and death of this young boy.
As Krakauer reveals more and more about the boy and his life previous to April 28, 1992 when he stepped into the wild, it is clear that McCandless was misled by the romantic writings of his favorite authors. It seems that he took the writings of Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Jack London to heart, and decided to live the life that these authors wrote about. McCandless set off to create for himself a fiction novel of his own; with each day in the wild, he wrote a new chapter of his story. Krakauer also inserts tales from his own life that reflect the same mentality and risk that McCandless displays in his journey. Nearing the end of the book Krakauer uncovers the true result and conclusion of McCandless's adventure, however this is a detail that is left for only the readers to discover.
To couple with this story, maps are present on some of the pages in this book that chart and track the journey that McCandless took during his "tramping" days. They support the text accurately and provide a very real opportunity to put the story to real life and imagine the roads that he treads in the last two years of his life. The retracing of Christopher McCandless's steps, which are depicted in these maps, demonstrate the effort and dedication Krakauer had for uncovering the mysterious journey taken by this young boy.
The book follows a detail account of a life that was lived much on the romantic side of reality. Through the eighteen chapters of this book Krakauer takes excerpts of writings by Christopher McCandless's favorite authors, as well as highlighted sections found amongst his remains that give light to the way he was feeling in the course of his journey. The book is a slight attempt at discovering what exactly was going on inside McCandless's head before the day he died. Although we will never know the answer to just what he felt, Krakauer does an adequate job at attempting to put some order to the boy's journey that forms an explanation of the otherwise unknown.
Nearing the middle of the book, Krakauer turns the words his way describing some of the adventures he had as a young boy, that prove to shed light on the mindset that the young McCandless may just have had as well. Krakauer's adventure of choice was climbing. He discloses the reasons for his passion for climbing in chapter fourteen. He writes of danger aspect of the climb as a major point of appeal to him. He states, "The greater the risk, the greater the reward in most aspects of life," (Krakauer, 134). One particular adventure that he unpacks in the book is his ascent of the Devil's Thumb, an icy mountain in the deep of Alaska. He also, like McCandless chose to do this adventure alone.
Krakauer's journey was full of risk and zeal and over-coming fear, much like McCandless's, however this journey did not cost him his life; though, he seems to think it should have. Much like the vocabulary that is thought to have influenced McCandless to take this adventure in the first place, Krakauer describes the moment when man overcomes the fight of the climb. "A trance-like state settles over you efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream." (Krakauer 142).
Was this the mentality that got a beloved McCandless in to such trouble, or was it something different? Local Alaska citizens sent in mail prior to the article that was published in Outside concerning Christopher McCandless's death. Folly was the reason for this fatality according to him. His letter reads, " Why would anyone intending to `live off the land for a few months' ignore Boy Scout rule number one: Be Prepared?"(Krakauer, 71) and another piece of mail form an Alaskan local states, " Alex is a nut in my book," (71). The census, in Alaska, it is easy to tell, would say that this boy's adventure and death was due to a lack of research and a poor study of the Alaskan wild lands, therefore a lack of preparation in total.
However, I am lead to a different conclusion. From the explanation of this book, I see the hunger and zeal, which was present in this boy's journey through the American wild. McCandless's pursuit of a wild life was one that carried the risk of a wild adventure that must be present in any journey, lest it be anticlimactic, as well as a few simple errors that ended up costing this boy his very life. It was a combination of both. There was error made in his decisions and his lack of nature training and in this respect, his actions are easily considered folly. Sadly, his folly could have been prevented had he done deep and thorough research on the wild lands of Alaska. However, that said, the entire concept of living alone in the bush of Alaska is undoubtedly a risk that would have been less intriguing had it been anywhere else. Thus, the boy's journey was one combined with folly and risk, which is what landed him the sad fatality of death at an early age.
All in all, it seems that Krakauer's goal in writing this biography of Christopher McCandless was simply to find some answers about his journey as well as to understand better the reasons behind his thirst for adventure. Both of these goals he does very well. By beginning with the boy's death and unraveling the story from there, Krakauer provides a more logical way of explaining what exactly happened to get him there. He interviews quite a few of the people that were impacted by McCandless on his journey and gets a taste of the man he was through the eyes of the people he encountered in his last two years of tramping around the United States.
Therefore, I am inclined to recommend this book wholeheartedly to any person who cares for the wilderness- or doesn't. This book is full of the effect of present day life on the soul of a man built for the outdoors, (and we all were). The conflicts, the laughter, the tears, and the freedom felt through the pages of this book are sure to move anyone who reads them. The story of Christopher McCandless is one that is real and relatable, even to those who don't now much about the wilderness. His journey is as much a tale of discovering truth and the heart of life and happiness, as it is a tale of wild adventure.Into The Wild is a book for the ages, and perhaps one that will amplify our appreciation for life and those we share it with for years to come.
A welth of experiance for us to borrow at a youg mans life.
I have never read a book so intently or violently in my life.
we all die.He died full of experience.that i think means most of us have something to gain here.
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Wrong Book
Appropriate for the price