Rating: 
Summary: Read it. Seriously.
Review: This book is a masterpeice. I don't say that often and I'm going to say it again. Masterpeice. Yes he didn't finish. Yes his grammer occasionally lapses into incoherency. Yes the narrative doesn't always make sense. But pay attention to the title. If you're expecting a book solely about the Mann Gulch disaster you might be disappointed. If you're truly expecting a story about young men and fire, you won't be.
Rating:
Summary: An American Tragedy
Review: In "Young Men and Fire" Norman MacLean offers a tragic, yet thoughtful, recreation of the 1949 Mann Gulch fire that left nearly an entire crew of U.S. Forest Service "Smokejumpers" dead. Over the course of the latter years of his life, Mann -- a former Forest Service firefighter himself -- unraveled the mystery of the greatest disaster in the history of the Smokejumpers, while at the same time weaving a tale of innocence lost as touching as any you'll read.Looking a little deeper into the MacLean's brilliant prose, you will find a pervasive analysis of the decisions made by the firefighters on that fateful day. More so than any other aspect of the book, I found this element to be the most valuable. Every critical decision is broken down and examined, providing the reader with a deep understanding of just how difficult decision making can be when lives are at stake. Bound to be a modern classic!
Rating:
Summary: a 20th century classic
Review: "Young Men and Fire" is one of the two or three best non-fiction books I have ever read. It ranks right up there with "A Moveable Feast," and that's no accident, because Maclean's prose evokes no other writer more than Hemingway (and particularly the young Hemingway). I see that it's been deprecated as "unfished." Bullfeathers. It's a work of art, and the repetition that some reviewers complain about is part of the art: we keep moving up to the moment when the young men burn to death; then we back off and approach the horror from another angle. The Smokejumpers were soldiers, and this is a tribute to the blind courage of youth, that launches itself into danger without thinking of the consequences. It's no accident that the only man to survive on the fire side of the ridge was the older man, the foreman, "Wag" Dodge, who with equally incredible courage lit a small grass fire, then lay down in the ashes and let the firestorm pass over him. Read it, and hope that you will never be tested as these young men were tested.
Rating:
Summary: What a great book!
Review: This is one of my favorite books. Norman MacLean does a tremendous job of describing the life of smokejumpers and has a great talent in understanding human nature. He writes it so well and I have a hard time putting this book down. The way that he writes it makes you feel like you are right there. There is triumph and tragedy, love and sorrow, but the human spirit still rises above the tragedy at Mann Gulch. Superb book!
Rating:
Summary: Haunting, vivid
Review: An unbelievably-vivid account of the death march of 12 young men and boys. By the end of the book, all you see is the parting smoke and a an out-of-reach ridge and a wall of flames; you feel just as trapped as the Smokejumpers Mann Gulch consumed.
Rating:
Summary: Coming to grips with tragedy
Review: Norman Maclean was haunted by two major events during his life, the death of his brother as told in A River Runs Through It and the Mann Gulch fire that is the subject of Young Men and Fire. The former became the basis for one of the best American novels, but the latter manifested itself in a work that was incomplete on Maclean's death. None the less, Young Men and Fire is a powerful account of one man's efforts to come to terms with tragedy. At the outset Maclean attempts to understand the Mann Gulch fire as a physical event involving flame and the death of the young Smokejumpers. His painstaking analysis is driven by an emotional need to understand the event. This process leads him ultimately to seek a spiritual understanding of the tragedy. Maclean's narrative of working with mathematicians who model fires for the Forest Service is the most humanizing description of mathematics that I have ever read, despite Maclean's eventual rejection of a reasoned analysis as a source of closure. Interestingly, Maclean was not directly involved in the incident, but rather became attached to it through his memory of himself as a young man in the Forest Service. To feel so strongly about something to which one only has an abstract connection is remarkable.
Rating:
Summary: An absolutely riveting masterpiece
Review: Having grown up in the rural west where forest fires are a part of everyone's lives, this book reminded me of how unpredictable a large fire can be. The way Norman MacLean tells this story, you can't help but feel that you are there with the doomed smokejumpers as they commence the race for their lives against one of nature's most awesome forces. A race that for 13 young men will end in doom. It's very obvious that MacLean had a great deal of passion for this story. He honours every one of those men that were in Mann Gulch on that terrible day in 1949 with this work.
Rating:
Summary: this book is awesome...
Review: I have to be honest in that for the last few years, I've been a sucker for what my father calls, "spy jobs." This book reads like fiction. Why the moviemakers chose to make "A River Runs Through It," rather than this story is beyond me. This has all the earmarks of a fantastic feature film. It is best read by a fire. There are few books that I re-read through the years and I'm on my fourth reading; it just keeps getting better each time. It's a fantastic true story as accurately can be told without having actually been there. I've recommended this volume to many who don't read much at all and they all loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderfully written
Review: Maclean pulls you in to this tragedy right from page one. His dedication to getting to the bottom of this story is unyielding and he quickly makes you a party in the quest for the truth. Those who enjoyed 'The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger' will also find this book to be as informative, haunting and engaging.
Rating:
Summary: incredible story and background
Review: I found the story itself of the men racing a raging fire fascinating. When combined with the physics of fires, it was totally captivating to me.
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