Looking for Alaska

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Summary: Finally, The REAL Alaska!
Review: Do you ever wonder what Alaska is really like when the tourists go home and we Alaskans are left with Alaska? Well, this is the book. It tells all. I am a lifelong Alaskan. I am also one of those mentioned in "Looking For Alaska." Peter stayed with me for several days at WinterCabin B and B and experienced his first Alaska snow while here in Tok, Alaska. I'm a writer by profession and I read the entire book with a critical eye, looking for a problem, searching for a place where he may have "doctored" it up or glossed over something. He didn't. Peter Jenkins has done a superb job of telling it like it is. Moving his family to Seward, Alaska, he has traveled the entire state, going where his heart took him. And he captured it all. The good, the bad, and the glorius. If you want to know how we Alaskans live at any given moment, at any given time, in any given place, this is the book that tells all. I have never read a book that so carefully, and fully, captured the entire state, but this one does. This his best book yet. Told in simple layman's terms, it's an easy read. Whether you're an armchair traveler, just interested in Alaska, or if you're planning a trip to Alaska and you can only read one book, read Peter Jenkins' Looking For Alaska."

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Summary: You have the wrong name
Review: You have the wrong name for the review "The Tough Sell" for "Looking For Alaska". It should be Gerard J. O'Loughlin.

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Summary: The Tough Sell
Review: I am a doctor, and technical reading is a large part of my job. During nine years of college and three years of residency I accumulated an astronomical number of technical reading hours. I read to pass test and stay current... period. You will not see me reading the newspaper on Sunday morning, and as for letters from home, I ask my wife what they say. To read for fun, I don't think so. Until my mother sent me this book "Looking for Alaska" by Peter Jenkins. She knows my love for Alaska after cooking on a seiner in Ketchican, working in canneries in Kenai and Homer, and being a student doctor in Barrow and a doctor in Seward. Also I've been to Dead Horse where the pipe line starts and Valdez where it ends. So I get this book in the mail. The first thing I notice, is how heavy it is, it has 434 pages as I usually check before starting to read. I had just recently been recertified, passing boards again, so my technical reading was at a low. My reading time is one to two hours in the tub most mornings, I'm there right now writing this review. I get that particular habit honest, my dad, a retired school teacher, used to correct tests in the tub. My sister, a lawyer, studied her way through law school in the tub. So one morning I set a cup of coffee on the tub ledge right, and the cordless phone on the left and started Peter Jenkins book, "Looking for Alaska". The author moves his family to Seward, AK, to get the true Alaskan experience for his book. If you have never been to Alaska you can get there for the price of the book. If you have been there or live there now, Peter will take you to places you haven't been, or revisit some of your favorite towns. He doesn't try to impress you with poetic descriptions of sunsets- his writing is just real. When Peter goes fishing in Southeast Alaska and describes the feeding whales, you're there. To travel sixty miles by snow-machine, to experience bush living, you're riding along. During a dangerous encounter with brown bears, you're thinking, I know this guy walked across America but I still think I can outrun him. Next you're back in time whale-watching in Barrow. "Looking for Alaska," really captured the heart and soul of Alaskan life, and Alaskan people.

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Summary: Looking for Alaska
Review: After reading Looking For Alaska, I felt the need to share my thoughts on this wonderful work by Peter Jenkins. He immediately transforms the reader on-site; you can feel the warmth and feelings as he experienced them. You can hear the moans of the mother bear when she finds her dead cub; the sounds of his paddles as he kayaks with his daughter in a glacer bay. He shares the culture of the Native American Inuits and brought me back to my early military life with the Inuits in California. I immediately bought his other works; Along the Edge of America, Walk Across America and The Walk West. I sincerely recommend Peter Jenkins' writings to all.

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Summary: If you want a feel for Alaska, buy this book!
Review: Peter Jenkins and his daughter Rebecca have written a book that makes you FEEL the places in Alaska they have been to. Reading the chapters on Seward, on arctic homesteads, or on kayaking in secluded bays is *almost* as good as being there. The chapter on the Outsiders who fall prey to "cabin fever" and the generous Alaska Trooper who keeps them alive is NOT to be missed!

I have lived in Alaska for over three years and found Mr. Jenkins' book to be insightful and inspiring. He captures the spirit of Alaskans and the places they live without romanticizing or demonizing them according to a political agenda. As a librarian, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how people in Alaska live and why we stay.

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Summary: ONLY SEEKERS FIND TREASURE
Review: LOOKING FOR ALASKA, Peter Jenkins most recent book, records his travels in a land rarely sought after by most. Climate and cost of travel play the main role in protecting it from tourist invasion. This built in protection factor has been it's savings grace.....continuing to preserve it's rich and still untamed heritage.

Alaska is virtually filled with dynamic spirits and colorful characters. It has been my personal experience that the natives of Alaska, as well as the "tranplants" want their nirvana to be left untouched by tourist and their dollars.They do not invite interference from outsiders, and are aware that history can and does repeat itself.....i.e. the old west.... Their main challenge seems to be holding off the invasion for as long as they possibly can. They love the everyday challenges that could cost them their lives. The everyday challenges here require much wisdom and seriousness, as well as a good sense of humor.

Everyday challenges in the bush of Alaska would equal circumstances of major crisis proportions to anyone in the lower United States. A simple road trip without the right provisions and planning could end up in tragedy if not carefully thought out days in advance. A six pack of Cokes could cost you $16.00, a bag of Cheetos...$6.00.This "kind" of challenge that is ever present if you reside in Alaska. All things take on a new light and dimension.

One thing I find refreshing about this book is that the author includes his family in his wanderings and works. Jenkins gracefully weaves his wife and children into his fabric of life. His daughter Rebekah, with the looks and style of a young Katherine Hepburn, contributes her thoughts in the chapter "NO ROAD". She has apparently inherited her fathers gift of penning thoughts with depth and perception. She has learned to transform words into images with great clarity and feeling.

If you feel the need to take a nice cool vacation without the cost and difficulty of getting there,read the book. Peter Jenkins style is intoxicating, addictive and relaxing. This goes for all his previous books as well.

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Summary: Alaska is not for sissies
Review: The Alaska that Peter Jenkins found is not the Alaska you see from the cruise ships that ply the Inside Passage in the summer. Jenkins looked past "tourist" Alaska and discovered the heart and soul of our biggest state.
The people that Jenkins writes about are as rugged as the Alaskan climate in the winter. These people who inhabit Alaska are tough and bold. Alaska is no place for sissies.
From the majestic mountains and glaciers, to land-fast ice and floating icebergs, to the abundant wildlife that teems both on land and in the water, each chapter tells a fascinating story of life in Alaska.
Peter Jenkins says, "No picture can truly recreate its vastness, its severity, and its profound beauty", but he does paint for the reader an unforgettable portrait of Alaska.

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Summary: Poorly written
Review: I wanted to read this book- my wife had read it, and recommended it to me, albeit with reservations. I have been to Alaska several times, and was familiar with many of the places Peter Jenkins was writing about, but.... the poor grammar, the sloppy writing, as if he wrote and submitted his first draft to his publisher without proofreading it. More astonishing, doesn't St. Martins' Press employ a proofreading editor? I would guess Mr. Jenkins has a good story to tell, but I couldn'y get past the second chapter before giving up in disgust

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Summary: Beautifully evocative of a land and its people
Review: "Looking for Alaska" is a series of fascinating tales of Peter Jenkins' experiences during an 18-month stay in Alaska. He is primarily interested in the relationship of Alaskans to the land they inhabit, so most chapters focus on the many diverse people he met along his journey. The author's straightforward, unadorned writing style effectively allows him to stay out of the way of his subjects - who range from Alaskan Native women to Iditarod racers to homesteaders above the Arctic Circle - as they reveal their stories. At times his writing was so understated that I began to wonder whether he was stunned into wordlessness by the Alaskan wild, but for the most part appreciated his restraint, especially when he conveyed funny anecdotes.

Though he keeps the focus on Alaska and its people, the author reveals some of his own personal journey as a middle-aged man still seeking new adventures. Part of the adventure this time around is that he brought his family with him (apparently a change from his previous travels); however, we learn little about how his wife and young daughter adjust to life in a small town on the edge of the wilderness, and his teenage sons are nearly absent from the story altogether. We read more about 19-year-old daughter Rebekah, who reminds the author of himself at the same age.

"Looking for Alaska" is at its best when Peter Jenkins allows the majesty and wildness of Alaska to reveal itself in the details of people's daily lives - whether traveling by snowmobile to areas without roads, coping with bears in the neighbors' yards, or struggling to maintain traditional "subsistence" living on the land's bounty. It piqued my curiousity about Alaska and even made me want to consider visitng there myself.

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Summary: Priorities
Review: I found Peter's book on a lay over in Dallas Tx a few weeks ago while on my way to San Francisco for a business meeting. I've never been much of a book reader but found myself needing something to kill some time.

I've always had dreams to do some of the things Peter has spent his life experiencing but allowed myself to be pulled into the corporate world out of college. I am now the Eastern Regional Sales Manager for a large housewares company and I also own a small furniture manufacturing company I started 3 years ago.

I made my first trip to Alaska last August. I had reached a point in time in my life where I needed to get away, far away.I left my family at home and traveled to Alaska alone for 2 weeks on an 8 day backpacking trip through the Talkeetna Mountain Range with a small guided group. It was the most cleansing experience of my life.

Reading Peters book reminded me about some of the life lessons I learned last summer. This book for me, was a celebration of life. It was a great inspiration for me as a reminder of whats really important. Get out there and experience life. Take in all the wonderful gifts we've been given instead of getting bogged down in all the anger and sadness. Make everyday count and live it like it was your last.

Peter Jenkins shows you in this book there is a place where you can live this life, it's called ALASKA!!

This book is a must read if you have always had that adventurous side but never been able to do anything about it. I will warn you to be careful reading this book. you might find yourself making some lifestyle changes at the end.