Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer
A couple of weekends ago, when we found ourselves driving from Seattle to Bellingham without an Ipod or any cds, Andrew and I stopped and picked up the soundtrack to the movie, Into the Wild. A family member had played it the previous weekend and Andrew remembered that he liked it. I don't remember hearing it all. We both loved the cd, I listened to it repeatedly on the drive home. Good music and by the lyrics of the songs, it sounded like we would enjoy the movie and the person that it was about. The cd reminded us of my brother Josh, probably because that is what we are thinking about a lot right now. But I think he would have liked it. About a week later, Andrew picked up the book. I read it first and I loved it. I didn't especially like the flow of the writing at first, but it gets a little more organized after the first few chapters. I also don't like that most of the story is based on picture journals, but that the pictures aren't included. But the story is interesting. And it is an easy quick read.

Here is the Wikipedia summary:
The book begins with the discovery of McCandless's body inside an abandoned bus in Alaska and retraces his travels during the two years he was missing. McCandless shed his real name early in his journey, adopting the moniker "Alexander Supertramp". He spent time in Carthage, South Dakota with a man named Wayne Westerberg. Krakauer interprets McCandless's intensely ascetic personality as possibly influenced by the writings of Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau, and perhaps McCandless's favorite writer, Jack London. He explores the similarities between McCandless's experiences and motivations and his own as a young man, recounting in detail his own attempt to climb Devil's Thumb in Alaska. He also relates the stories of some other young men who vanished into the wilderness, such as Everett Ruess, an artist and wanderer who went missing in the Utah Desert during 1934 at age 20. In addition, he describes at some length the grief and puzzlement of McCandless's family and friends.