Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
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I am sure that by now most have heard of this book, or at least are familiar with the movie adaptation. In recent months, the story of Christopher McCandless has received a lot of publicity and spectulation.
In case you aren’t familiar with the book (or movie), Christopher McCandless was a young idealist who donated all his money to charity, rid himself of all his possessions and took off for the wilds of Alaska-never to return. Several months after his journey began, his body was discovered in an abandoned bus. A victim, many claim, of his own stupidity.
Jon Krakauer first picked up McCandless story for Outdoor Magazine. It gleamed so much publicity and interest that Krakauer returned to the story and dug further into finding out who Christopher McCandless was, why he did what he did, and what he did wrong. Armed with interviews from those who befriended McCandless prior to his Alaskan adventure and anecdotal stories about other men who attempted to go “into the wild”, Krakauer managed to deliver a heart breaking account of a lost soul.
It was tragic that McCandless died out there in the wilderness; but then again, so many people have benefited from his story… a couple of years of hitchhiking led to his story challenging thousands (millions?) of people to reexamine their lives