Rating: 
Summary: Hated It!
Review: I think that the book is well written; I find Kraukhauer's style and organization quite good.I hated the chief character. I think that he was a spoiled brat, young and idealistic, and irresponsible. Regardless of your anger to your parents who have given you everything, you don't walk out on them, break off contact, and become a vagrant. Yes, a vagrant. While reading this book I knew my next one was "My Just War" by Gabriel Temkin. I didn't know what it was about, but I knew that it was about a Polish Jew who was in the Russian Army during WWII. I knew that it was going to be about survival. Temkin book did not let me down. It was about someone with nothing and no one who survived, prevaled and made something of his life. This was quite refreshing, compared to Into the Wild where the main character throws everything away. If you want to read about surviving during an incredible time in a terrible place, read Temkin' s book.
Rating: 
Summary: A True Life Mystery
Review: I thought that "Into The Wild" and "Eiger Dreams" were better reading, but "Into The Wild" was a sad and compelling story. The side stories served to show that Chris McCandless was not an aberration. The mystery of his death, revealed in the last pages, was truly surprising.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't want to put it down.
Review: I originally purchased Into Thin Air and was going to read it first, until I saw "other books written by the author". I love Krakauer's writing style, it puts you right there in the action. It does just what reading is supposed to do. It helps you visualize, use your brain, and imagine the situation. I love the outdoors, and wouldn't imagine doing what Chris did. It was a romantic idea picked up on from the adventure books he read. This story also shows what can happen to a person who is unprepared to live in the wild, forced to live off the land. As I said at the start, when I learned of the tragedy on the Everest expedition, I read everything I could get my hands on about the incident. This type of obsession is probably what caused Krakauer to write this book. He had to tell others the story, and I am thankful to him for telling it to me. Oh yeah, is everyone in Iowa reading the same thing at the same time?
Rating: 
Summary: End of story. The Ultimate loser. And he's dead.
Review: The book was so good --- and so bad --- I couldn't, or wouldn't, stop reading it. It was like sitting up all night in exhilarated debate arguing religion or politics with an old respected friend. But no happy endings in these chapters. No warm fuzzies about what a great humanitarian Christopher McCandless was. No fascinating anecdotes from the road. No vivid, home-movie pictorial paragraphs about what he experienced in his travels. In 200-odd pages, there's little to like about the guy. The author Jon Krakauer spends about the first third of the book chronicling the victim's travels in a sort of journalese indifference. " He went here. He went there. He did this. He did that." Competent documentation, but dispassionate writing. We already know the ending; everything in between is retrograde fill-in-the-blanks. Then Krakauer throws in an entire self-conscious chapter about all the people who've responded to his own original magazine article, just to chime in and say, in essence, "Yup. The dude skrewwwed the pooch...." Next, it gets fun, sort of. For no particular reason, the author shifts to first-person to describe his own cockamamie exploits climbing mountains, and for the first time, the book gets personal and interesting. For once, he's writing about his own experience, instead of relying upon newspaper morgues and the faded recollections of former acquaintances of the victim, the supposed protagonist of the book itself. Kind of like bringing yer own beer to the party, and then sitting in the corner by yourself. When he's not insinuating his own war-stories upon the reader, Krakauer seems to be scratching his head, trying to figure out this goofus McCandless, and he never describes it but in vague j-school nonchalance. Predictably, he cobbles together all the roadie suspects for significant chapter-head quotes to fill out any Profound Meaning to life: Twain, Thoreau, Muir, Tolstoy and London, because vapid McCandless has little or nothing to say for himself. Another ! 20-30 tedious pages go by, and then we're off to the Alaskan wilderness. We already know he's doomed; the book ended 100 pages ago. No, wait! It ended on the front cover! Krakauer missed one huge overriding factor in his chronicle of Christopher McCandless: Elemental truth is that The Road is a narcotic. Those travelin' jones can be just as hypnotic as any syringe. And like any sort of dope, it tends to foreshorten one's entire perspective of life. Twenty-five grand in the bank? Throw it away. Gotta car? Park it somewhere. Friends, family, job, career? "Into the Wild" shows a self-absorbed young man who would otherwise have every opportunity in life. He destroys the long-term for the immediate. Like any doper, he barters away everything for the right-now hand-to-mouth immediacy of his cheap fix. Alaska, for McCandless, is not foot tracks in the virgin snow; it's needle tracks in the squishy flaccid arm of a sociopath.. He comes from a rich family who gives him everything.He has a college education which someone else paid for. Guess he never had to do much for himself but stay awake from one class bell to the next. Such agony.... So he hates his old man, and hates the way he was raised. Hey, goll-ee.... maybe he's old enough he can start raising himself. Did he ever think of that? But, no-o-o-oo.... He ends up starving, sick and miserable, with little to do but scribble in his futile diary that hey, he shot his-self a squirrel today And the blueberries are just swell.. He died in the same selfish, nihilistic squalor befitting any urban junkie.
Rating:
Summary: feeds the adventure hunger of any Man's heart
Review: i was loaned this book from someone close to me, but we discontinued talking and i had to return the book. the next day i went right out and baught it and didn't put it down until i reached the end. krakauer's ability to engage his reader is unlike anyone i know. he took me everwhere chris went; into his heart, his mind, and into the wild. between McCandless and Krakauer, they expressed the truth and desire that burns within so many of us. exploring the difference between the dreams and reality and making dreams reality. McCandless in my eyes died very honorably, he faced his fears, his dreams, imperfections, and he followed his dreams. i believe that he succeeded far more then most people will given their entire lives. "into the wild" touched me in such an surprising way. it was far more then an adventure book. it was a book about truth and honesty, and life and death. i sometimes think this world we live in is far more dangerous then the world chris lived in. i loved the quotes included throughout the book. they lent much to chris's motives and touched me on a personal level. overall, the book was very motivational and clensing. i can't wait to read other books by krakauer.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it, Lent it, and Never expect to see it again...
Review: This is one that will make the rounds of my family, along with Into Thin Air. Both books were great...makes me want to get a subscription to outdoor magazine. Are all their other writers this good?
Rating:
Summary: A very compelling view of life from an intelligent young man
Review: I picked this book up in an airport and could not put it down. Chris McAndless' life simply amazed me. How could a bright, intelligent young man consider a hard, knock-about life on the road, that would eventually lead to death. Did the extensive reading of "deep"authors trigger this type of behavior; was he living out what he read? This book was excellent. I also enjoyed having the author tell about his journey; one similar to Chris'. This is one of those books that totally envelope you in concentration.
Rating:
Summary: A reading experience that will stay with you.
Review: Despite the many reviews I read here before embarking on INTO THE WILD, I was unprepared for the emotional impact of this book. Krakauer avoids cheap dramatics. Instead, he tells the story in straight-forward way which leads readers to develop a feeling of kinship toward McCandless. By the end of the book, you'll feel like you lost someone you knew.
Rating:
Summary: In defense of Alexander Supertramp
Review: INTO THE WILD is the nonfiction story of a literary genious who takes the idealistic visions of his favorite writers as seriously as the issues of his own life and death. For people who love the outdoors and high risk activities, Alexander Supertramp metaphorically demonstates both the beauty of raw experience and the tragedy of surpassing one's own physical limits. The irony of a young man who rejects the value of material possessions but dies because he lacks simple survival equipment manifests itself in the juxtaposition between the eloquent passages from Thoreaux and Tolstoy and the fact that our young antihero perishes for lack of a decent map. Finally, Supertramp symbolizes the inability of modern man to find true adventure in our overly tamed world which I would argue lacks any opportunity for primeval experience.
Rating:
Summary: A view inside the head of a unique young adventurer
Review: Chris McCandless went into the Alaskan wilderness not knowing what fate had in mind for him. Jon Krakauer has written a superb book about survival in the Alaskan bush. In this novel he tells about what went through the mind of McCandless and why he left his life in an affluent Washington D.C. suburb. This is a truly remarkable story about a young man's battle with himself and nature.
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