Looking for Alaska

Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for anyone going to Alaska
Review: My mother and I are going to Alaska for a month this summer, a treat from her to me for graduating with my MBA. I love exotic people, the wilderness, mountains, orcas, sled dogs, everything that seems to be Alaska. She does too. I love reading, she loves books on tape. So I got her LOOKING FOR ALASKA, the book on tape, and got myself the book. I was there before we got there because of reading this excellent book and now am concerned we will not come close to experiencing the depths of Alaska as Peter Jenkins and his family did. We are going to give it our best shot. This should be required reading for anyone going to Alaska, anyone who loves people and wild places. My mother loved the book on tape version, and I am now listening to it. I am getting things I missed in the book. Cannot wait to be there in real life.

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Summary: My Dad and I actually agree on something Audio!!!!
Review: I gave this to my Dad, an aweseome man, really, and an engineer, but with a soul.

I discovered Peter Jenkins when my roomate at college told me to read his first book, `A Walk Across America' when I was complaining about how pathetic this country was. He actually walked across the whole country right out of college, which is amazing, but what was truely amazing was that he stopped and worked with all kinds of different people, very different from himself. He discovered this country like no one I have ever read about and made me wonder about it and realize that I was being a bit silly for condemning it without knowing much more about it than the Boston suburbs.

Anyway since then I have become a fan of Peter Jenkins, eventhough he is more the age of my Dad.

I bought the audio version of `Looking for Alaska' for my Dad for a holiday gift and listened to it before giving it to him, as an escape from finals.

First of all Peter Jenkins has a very calming voice. And best of all he brought me to a place I had only faintly dreamed of, Alaska, and showed me more about my country.

Very few people really listen to people and feel their lives and do not judge their place in this world. Peter does and I would give anything to be able to travel with him somewhere, someday. Come to think of it I already have. I will not be the same person after reading two of his books and listening to this one.

The other thing I like about Peter is that he brings to life people I would normally not agree with or want to know and I end up at least being open to them and their points of view.

In this politically correct world, especially here at college, where everyone at time sounds like clones or drones, how refreshing.

And maybe my Dad will take Peter's example and take me on an adventure like he did all his kids in Alaska. Or for that matter, maybe I should take him on one.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent audio book
Review: Got this for Christmas from my nineteen year old daughter, now a Freshman in college. Have been listening for four days on a drive to Florida and back.

This book brings us the real Alaska, which the Discovery Channel and National Geographic often do not. Yes, there is the wild beauty of Alaska in this book but there are also the seedy bar rooms. Many times these views we get of Alaska on TV only show the besuty. There is a Brown bear but instead of running down the creek after a salmon in the gold light of sunset it is defending its food by almost killing this guy who wanders too close. This is one of the most hair raising, terrifying experiences I have ever heard of. There are real live people hunting moose (for those of you that live in la-la land like one of the reviewers prior, people still hunt in Alaska to live off the meat and just to plain hunt. Hey it has not been that long since we were all predators. There are the intense visions of bright blue glaciers but also the intensely moving story of a Native woman struggling with self realization, substance abuse and marriage. Wow, sounds like reality not some Disney-fake place many of the la-la land livers amoung us prefer.

Bottom line, wonderful listening experience. Peter Jenkins is no James Earl Jones but I like the author to read their own work. I will never think of Alaksa again the same way. I commend Peter Jenkins for telling the story of the real last frontier. The more phony our work places and politicians and places of worship get, the more they run and hide from the tough truth and sugar coat our world the more I like Peter Jenkins work.

My wonderful daughter who gave me this thinks this Peter Jenkins is cool, I think he is the real deal, and I can proudly say we both strongly agree on something. By the way the portion of this book, written by Peter's daughter, Rebekah, is quite wonderful. Hopefully she will write more. I am very glad they had her read her portion of this very fine audio book.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, Intense, Moving Audio Book
Review: A fellow commuting neighbor told me I just had to listen to Peter Jenkins latest adventure book, LOOKING FOR ALASKA. I had read his monster best seller A WALK ACROSS AMERICA when I was in college and enjoyed it immensely. I listen to audio books all week long as I travel to work on the California highway system. This is one of the best audio books I have ever listened to. I felt like I was under that Brown Bear as it was biting through that man's skull. I was there when Peter and his talented daughter, Rebekah, were in kayaks next to icebergs and glaciers and even teared up as they both wrote of that intensely moving, rare father/daughter moment. I became for a time one of the Eskimo whalers living on the slab of ocean ice.. An incredible experience. Loved hearing Peter read the book, and his daughter, Rebekah, read the portions of the book she wrote, as well. This listening experience, over twelve hours of it, was why I prefer the actual author reading their work. They may not be as dramatic or their voices are not as trained but it is a more real, more moving for me. AND, really loved the natural sounds of Alaska and the brief voice excerpts of some of the main characters they used. This book on tape should win some award. Justina from California by way of The University of Michigan

Rating:
Summary: Jenkins Brings Alaska A Bit Closer
Review: Peter Jenkins spent 18 months getting to know Alaska and its people. This 400-page description of his journey of discovery brings Alaska into sharper focus for those of us "lower-48ers" who haven't been there.

In this book, the natural beauty of the state and the bitter cold share billing with the people in making a memorable story. The author has personality and style that allows him to quickly connect with strangers -- a useful trait when one needs invitations and personal stories to fill out a book. Thus we meet Tina, a Prince of Wales Island lady who has lived a life of turmoil between reflecting the glamour of life as depicted by People Magazine and the certainty and pride of her native Indian culture. We meet a captain and his crew in Barrow (the country's northernmost town, with the northernmost post office, the northernmost Mexican restaurant, etc.), waiting on the dangerous frozen arctic ocean ice to spear a whale as his forefathers have for centuries. We meet bush people, particularly one family who lives alone, sixty miles from the nearest road and just below the Arctic Circle, in the warm embrace of nature and family while 40 degree below zero temperatures lurk outside. We meet fishermen who take Jenkins on to crew their boat on salmon runs, guides who take vacation hunters to the wilderness to shoot moose, Iditarod champion dog sled mushers, the neighbors in Seward (where the Jenkins family has home base for their sojourns), bush pilots, politicians, Eskimos and escapees from the continental US living out dreams and fantasies in the great north.

Always, the landscape and cold dominates. Alaska is a land of immense beauty as well as immense area. Jenkins describes mountains whose rise from surrounding plain to peak rivals any in the world and frozen tundra that stretches well beyond all the area the eye can see. Bears, eagles, moose and other wildlife are ever-present in Alaska. (To an East Coast American, it must seem like living in a zoo.) Even in moderately sized towns like Seward, the police log reads like a Jeff Corwin Experience as people deal with bears in their garbage, walking through their yards and lunching on the occasional family pet.

Jenkins does a good job of weaving human experiences and natural observation into a book. In Alaska, it would be impossible to do otherwise. Distance, bitter cold and sunlight dominate so many aspects of life that they are a part of the beginning, middle and end of every story.

I thought the author sometimes wrote with too many words, particularly when he allowed his wandering thoughts to drift onto the page. A good editor would have improved the flow in parts of this book. A few of his experiences lagged and seemed out of place among the high adventures and physical challenges presented in most parts. This is a minor quibble, however. About 80 - 90% of the places he goes and personalities he introduces fascinated this reader and served to give me a much better understanding of life in Alaska.

Rating:
Summary: Fun....
Review: Looking for Alaska is a series of stories describing Peter Jenkins' two year trip to what many have termed the final frontier. From the Kenai Peninsula to Barrow, from Deering to Fairbanks, Jenkins proceeds to locate the appropriate hosts, immerse himself in their surroundings, and describe with palpable wonder the experience for his readers.

Yet, Peter Jenkins is not a writer who travels. He cannot create the finely crafted sentences of Bill Bryson, William Least Heatmoon, or Jonathan Raban. More simply, Mr. Jenkins is a traveler who writes, though his exuberance and sincerity provide ample compensation for those expecting a wordsmith.

I thoroughly enjoyed Looking for Alaska and felt throughout that, rather than reading a book written by someone unknown, I was being given the long-awaited lowdown on the journey of an adventurous friend.

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Summary: Looking For Alaska
Review: Absolutely wonderful. I felt I was right there with him. I didn't want the book to end. But now I have some great ideas for when we go to visit Alaska.

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Summary: Jenkins' Alaska: A must read!
Review: This is yet another in the Jenkins style of "hands-on, thought I was there" writing. Having traveled extensively in Alaska, Peter exactly captured the people, the pride and the uniqueness that is Alaska. If you've been there, or only thought about it in your armchair, give this exceptional book a try. The only negative is that his personal life story weaves in and out of this book, and it might be a bit challenging for non-Jenkins readers to fully appreciate on the first reading. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Captured Alaska in a very readable book
Review: This author really seemed to "live" Alaska in the short time he was there. I loved reading about each one of the adventures he took part in and found the highlighting of particular people he got to know very well done. What I didn't enjoy was his shameless promotion of his daughter's writing. "We are warriors"--she'll regret that line in a few years and the author should regret plugging her bad writing in an otherwise excellent book.

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Summary: I HAVE READ FOUR OF PETER'S BOOKS. EACH DIFFERENT.EACH FINE.
Review: As I professor of writing, I have been deeply impressed with Peter Jenkins writing and the refinement and improvement it has shown over the years. Every one of his books is very different, a tribute to his adaptability and skill.

We teach that everyone should develop an original style, he has done that, a deceptively simple, yet often profound one. He allows his subjects to live, a rare talent of his to be sure.

I noticed in a newspaper article about him that this latest book, LOOKING FOR ALASKA, probably his best piece in so far as capturing a place won BookList's "TOP TEN LITERARY TRAVEL BOOK of the YEAR."

I remember arguing with a collegue that Jenkins was literary in his own way, I guess others are saying it now.

BRAVO Peter, another fantastic journey you have taken us on, keep developing that style.

I predict your books will still being read and published, like your 25 year old A WALK ACROSS AMERICA, when most of the other best sellers of today are gone.