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Into the Wild By Jon Krakauer ( Anchor )
Release Date: 2007-08-21
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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. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter....
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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.
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 Great book for adventurous souls
I read this book years ago and picked it up again recently. What a great read! It explores youthful restlessness and a describes very accurately the desire many of us have to break free from the shackles of society and "live" for a little while. This feeling is a yearning for something dangerous and adventurous (whether climbing a glacier-covered mountain peak alone in Alaska or setting off on a cross-country journey with nothing but the clothes on your back), without worrying about the consequences. This sentiment is very common in younger people (e.g., Chris McCandless was about 22 when he began his odyssey). This book is great for anyone looking for a fun book to lose themselves in, and who are either young or young at heart.
I have not seen the movie yet, but the book is great. I'm interested to see just how accurately the movie tracks the book.
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Hacia rutas salvajes ( vallester10 )
Este bestseller permitió a Krakauer obtener la reputación de notable escritor de aventuras. Este libro se basa en la historia real de Christopher McCandless, un joven proveniente de una familia acomodada de la Costa Este quien, tras graduarse en la universidad, donó todo su dinero a obras de caridad y se embarcó en un viaje por el oeste americano bajo el nombre de "Alexander Supertramp". Dos años después, McCandless fue encontrado muerto en la desolación de Alaska. En su libro, Krakauer traza paralelismos entre sus propias experiencias y motivaciones y aquellas que guiaron a McCandless a su trágico final. Krakauer también narra la historia de Everett Ruess, un joven artista a que despareció en el desierto de Utah en 1934, cuando tenía solo 20 años.
Nestor Vallester
www.tesmel.com
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Enchanting
This book was amazing. It goes much further into the idealism of "going into the wild" then the story of Alex himself; unlike the movie. Recommend to any person ever willing to pass on the idea of society and return to our roots.
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 Into the wild review
This book was okay it wasn't all that great, but if you like an autobiography then this is the book for you.
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 Hubristic fool ( sconnelly12 )
Unfortunately, I find this to be one of the most idiotic stories I have ever read. It is the story of a young man with no respect for the enormity of nature. His story is akin to waiting on a beach to watch a category 5 hurricane make landfall. I feel sorry for Chris' family
I love Krakauer's other books.
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