Into the Wild »

Jon Krakauer is the author of Under the Banner of Heaven, Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air and is editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.

Soon to be a Major Motion Picture; Directed by Sean Penn, starring Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, William Hurt, and Marcia Gay Harden. In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of INTO THE WILD.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound...

San Francisco Chronicle

Compelling and tragic...Hard to put down.