This book was soooo great! Along with other people, I wasn't too sure if the sequel to Time Stops For No Mouse would be as good as the first one.

But it was. It had great suspense, and you really felt what the characters were feeling. It is a very refreshing change from the usual fantasy/spin on fairy tales that is popular. (Even though I like that stuff.) I don't really know what there is to not like about it; maybe just the fact that there are only two books about Hermux Tantamoq. I really like the fact that Michael Hoeye(anybody know how to pronounce his name?) added the "mythical CATS" to the story line.

If you haven't read this book, you really SHOULD!!!!!!!!

By the way, Time Stops For No Mouse is REALLY GREAT, too.

With two books published 2002 -- Time Stops for No Mouse (January) and The Sands of Time (September) -- The Hermux Tantamoq Adventures are SPECTRUM's Favorite New Book of 2002.

Michael Hoeye has created a charming, 1920s-ish world where rodents rule. At the center of these delicious tales is the meek Hermux Tantamoq. Hermux, who's half house mouse and half field mouse, is an expert watchmaker and mechanical wiz who happens to have a pet ladybug named Terfle. Each night before bed, Hermux takes the time to enter into his journal all the things for which he was thankful that day. Hoeye compliments his lead character with a clever supporting cast of characters and constructs stories that pay homage to old movies and invoke the feeing of perhaps an Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle tale. While there is something charmingly old-fashioned about the flavor of the books, Hoeye infuses his tales with wit, satire, and social commentaries that are spot-on for today's reader.

While the publisher states that Michael Hoeye's playful adventure/ mysteries are young adult fiction, these books are excellent for both younger audiences and adults. They are good for younger audiences for two reasons. First, they make great bedtime stories for those who read to their children. Second, Hoeye's easy, uncomplicated style, gentle story lines, and short chapters make these books ideal for a child to transition from chapter books to novels. At the same, time the underlying wit and social commentary, mentioned above, gives the books an added layer to be enjoyed by the adult reader or the older child who returns to the books.

These are books that should become generational family favorites, so the investment in hard cover editions is worth the expense.

- K. B. SHAW, Publisher -

This stunning sequal to Time Stops for No Mouse, both by Michael Hoeye, is by far one of the greatest sequals I have ever read. It possesses a cunning plot, with a great story to accompany it. It has all the wonderful components for a wonderful read, let alone a literary accomplishment. Hoeye is an awesome writer, who creates beautiful ictures for the mind. Surely atisfactory for any reader.

It's good to see Chaosium getting back to topnotch books again. This one along with Unseen Masters, represents a "new wave" of Call of Cthulhu - as good or better than any of the stuff released in years.

You can't really go wrong with this package, it's got background resource material for the Goatswood area and a nice bundle of scenarios that look like fun to run (I can't wait to spring some of them on my group! HEH HEH HEH) I don't want to give away any spoilers but there's an S&M club, and the "GUARD" at the club is such a wicked idea not to mention the dude who runs the place. Good to see Ramsey the man himself giving the introduction, read his Silent Children book if you really want to get chills!

The artwork is decent, and lots of it. Plenty of handouts too, which are really important as far as I am concerned. One thing I could do without though is the side illustrations, they take up too much room that could maybe be used for information. But that's a small jibe compared to the value.

I'm a longtime Cthulhu keeper but new to Ramsey Campbell (other than the material in the rulebook). The first half of the book is devoted to resource material covering magic, monsters and locations in the fictitious Severn Valley (well the Severn Valley itself isn't fictitious of course). The second half is devoted to a campaign of 7 or 8 scenarios. Everything is well written, well thought out and seems very playable. I'm looking forward to running it!

I've waited a long time for this one, and the wait was worth it! It's chock full of scenarios (forming a campaign which you can ignore if you want), and lots of background material on Ramsey Campbell's Severn Valley. I wish there'd been more maps and maybe more info on some of the locations but all in all, this is a COOL package!

Mr. Dunne is an oddly likeable writer. His authorial voice is friendly, reassuring, confident and confidential. I picked up this book out of curiosity, after reading JUSTICE in which Dominick Dunne goes over the Martha Moxley murder.

The story is, for the most part, narrated in the first person by Harrison Burns, in 1972 and 1993, although there is a middle section called "1989 New York," which is pointedly written in the third person. Harrison is a poor school chum of Constant Bradley the rich, spoiled son of Gerald Bradley a ruthless moneymaker and partriach of a large ostentatiously Catholic family, mothered by Grace, an ostenstatiously devout religious maniac obsessed with appearances and determined to become a papal countess (in fact, she is Dunne's most engaging character, along with Bridey the cook). It's all obviously based on Kennedy mythology and takes a tabloid-level view of their legendary behaviour. The murder of the high school girl is dutifully enunciated to resemble the Martha Moxley case with a smidgeon of red herring thrown in to make it fiction.

There is nothing demanding about this book, nor is there anything surprising. It's an entertaining read in the lightest sense, like watching a made-for-TV movie after a hard day's work. Reading this was both relaxing and tedious. The main interest was in spotting where Dunne shamelessly imitates life such as when the defense attorney, based directly on the Menendez Brothers trial, faces the TV cameras with her raised middle-finger shouting, "This what you want?" or in weaving into the plot a case similar to that of Wayne Lonergan the devastatingly handsome (how easily one falls into this flat and florid style) bisexual social climber who murdered his socialite wife. (Both stories are reported in JUSTICE so that's how I know they're lifted and proves that Mr. Dunne is obsessed with the proceedings of justice, an admirable quality in itself.) That friendly and confidential voice of Mr. Dunne's gets there in the end and I was moved by the story of the victim's mother and that the murder of her daughter was never revenged. There's no denying that Mr. Dunne has his heart and intentions in the right place.

Perhaps my three-star opinion is based on my own moodiness since recently my dog had to be put to sleep and I finished this book while it was snowing outside. In this circumspect mood, I sprawled on the couch and read this while watching the television summary of the Australian tennis tournament at the same time, and with the same lack of personal interest since I don't much care for tennis. The book has a nice cover, showing a summery house with a tennis court. Enough said.

I can't agree with other reviewers that this is "vintage Dunne" or "quintessential Dunne" because this is my first Dominick Dunne book, but it certainly kept my attention for all of its 500-odd pages. The book was recommended to me by a friend who had seen the made-for-TV movie, and it did not disappoint.

Based "loosely" (read obviously) on the Martha Moxley murders, the book is about a friend of the Bradley family, Harrison Burns, who helps the family's favorite son, Constant Bradley, move the body of Winifred Utley, whom he's murdered. Gerald Bradley, who bears a striking resemblance to Joseph Kennedy, buys Harrison's silence, but the book is less about Harrison's struggle with his secret and more about how he got involved with the Bradleys and then later disentangled himself.

The book was written before Michael Skakel went to trial, and I read the trial portion of the book hoping that the book would mirror the real life outcome, justice for all, etc. Ultimately, this book is an indictment of people in power who hush up unsavory incidents to help themselves. Take it with you if you need to stay awake.... you won't want to put it down.

This novel is Dunne at his best. In this story Dunne fictionalizes the Martha Moxley murder and shows his strengths as a storyteller. Here Dunne shows he can balance plot as well as charcter development.

This story is told from the point of veiw of Harrison Burns. When Harrison was a teenager he saw his friend Constant Bradley murder the girl next door. Constant's family buys Harrison's silence through the years by paying his college tution and sending him abroad.

However as the years go on Harrison finds it harder to live with what he has seen. These feelings cause the demise of his marriage and general self loathing. Harrison is forced to face off with the Bradley's when they invite him to their home to ask Harrison to write a book about Constant's life.

Along with Harrison's dilema Dunne tells the story of the demise of a family. The skill with which Dunne tells both stories make this book well worth reading. The other to reason to read it is of course, affairs, family battles, and good gossip.

Collecting the first seven issues of the Gen13 regular series this book has excellent artwork and entertaining stories. The big disappointment is the poor quality paper used. Worse than that used by most comic books, the paper is grey and makes all the colors murky. And whoever decided to print the original covers of the issues at 80% size and rotated so that the corners are cut off should be fired.

One of the Best Wildstorm Graphic novels of all time! This particular Gen13 Tradepaperback reprients the first Seven issues of Gen13: the regular series. It takes place where the first Gen13: miniseries left off. This one of Brandon Choi's Best writtem works! Brandon Choi, Jim Lee, and J Scott Campbell created this superhero team of Gen-active teens! These young people are lead by the mentor, Lynch or I/O from the WildCats: miniseries. the Gen 13 team leader is Fairchild,former college student who discovered she had more abilites then just brains! Then their is Burnout who is like Wildstorm's human torch! Grunge and Freefall, Gen-active teans who love to party! They have a love and friend relationship which is essential to the story! The RainMaker is the native-American superheroine who is also a Lesbian! She finally admitts to her sexual perference after having an on and off relationship with Bobby Lane aka Burnout! This book has wonderful characterizations and art and is considered one of the best Wildstorm titles ever made. With an acclaimed story by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee and Campbell, Art drawn by J. Scott Campbell with Alex Garner, This is a great read with Beautiful art! Also, Jim Lee and Scott Willaims apply the artwork for issues #6 and 7! Buy it! If you love comic books I know you will want this!

EXCELLENT,EXCELLENT,EXCELLENT, This graphic novel has the best artwork and the best stories and has humor (something rarely seen in most except for Young Justice). It should have had a few fold out wall posters of the girls too. I guess you can't have everything. This is just a little better than Young Justice because it's a little more adult and the girls are breathtaking. Too bad their not based on real women. If Image kept J. Scott Campbell for all of Gen 13 and not just the beginning they would have sold a lot more comics. Too bad he now works on Danger Girl which isn't near as fun to read as Gen 13. Art alone cannot always sell a comic book.

This book does have a lot of good information, but the drawings are sketchy and inadequate for a beginning woodworker. Even worse, the drawings are rarely next to the relevant text. For instance, when you're reading the Purple Martin house instructions, you're looking at the Phoebe house.

This book is very helpful for making birdhouses. Not only does it give you several plans for birdhouses it also provides detailed information on different bird species. That information will help you know what type of house to build, opening sizing and more.

I got this for my nine year old daughter and she really likes it. So, it's pretty easy to read and other than the charts is not too dry to read either.

This book is short and to the point, well researched and documented. There is a bibliography in the back that is helpful for further reading.

The plans in this book are for simple, unadorned, basic shelter for birds. Even if you want to build fancy "designer" birdhouses, you need this book to discover the entrance size, location and interior requirements for dozens of species of birds. He even gives great tips on how to locate your completed shelters, including population density for most species covered. There is an amazing amount of information in this 48 page book.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone contemplating building birdhouses. Your success as a bird "landlord" will be assured!

Though Whiteman and Campbell fail to answer a fundamental question in their all-too-brief introduction (just what is a union list?), this undaunted reader was pleased to find a wealth of information in this slender tome. Richly delivering on the title's promise, Whiteman and Campbell do indeed offer a scrupulously alphabetized list of court record holdings, encompassing both the federal and state judiciaries.

Moreover, this helpful work includes addresses, telephone numbers, formats and lending policies of the myriad law libraries profiled herein. While I will probably never ever again refer to this work, it is edifying to know that fastidious scholars Whiteman and Campbell have provided me with the knowledge that the North Carolina Division of Archives & History's Cultural Resources Department holds case files of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1800 to 1939.

The publisher is to be commended for printing the book using an attractive serif font on pleasing, cream-colored paper. The cover and binding also seem durable enough to stand years of disuse on a forgotten shelf.

In A Union List of Appellate Court Records and Briefs : Federal and State, Whiteman and Campbell outline a new type of Supreme Court brief aesthetics based in contemporary literary theory and exemplified by a variety of imaginative texts, from Anglo-American canonical poetry and fiction to avant-garde music and film. The innovative work links philosophical and aesthetic issues inherent to collections of state and federal briefs, with postmodernism continuing and amplifying the central concerns of romanticism, including subject formation, the disruptive effects of the human body; and the unique forms of textuality found in the writings of lawyers arguing before the appellate courts of Louisiana and New Jersey. Messiers Whiteman and Campbell, discuss such conflicts in psychoanalytic terms, although the book demonstrates how imaginative texts complicate psychoanalytic models, especially in legal bibliography. Perhaps through the influence of Campbell (the droll Frick to the obtuse Frack of Whiteman), the Union List of Appellate Court Records keeps reinventing itself through conflict via the exploration of limits, that is, by surviving extreme experience more than from the results of the dialectic. State or federal? -- who cares as the briefs dissolve in a world affirming, karmic Weltansicht.

Whiteman and Campbell manage to turn a truly dull subject into fascinating reading! Should be on everyone's "must read" list.

I have to agree with the other reviewers it's Atwood at her best, and so help me disturbing as can be, disturbing as the Handmaid's tale. I have actually listened to the audio-book (unabridged!) and it is the absolute best narration - the way he reads it makes you believe you are there with Jimmy or Snowman if you wish - I really loved this book and am sorry, it's over.

Keep reading - this is not your usual Margaret Atwood story line, or is it? A brilliant and illuminating novel about a possible future for a world that has come to worship at the altar of technology. The story has considerable tension in it to keep the reader glued to the book to see what comes next. Above all, this is a book about "words" and the beauty of language lost. Atwood flavors her grim vision of the future with the spices of words no longer in the vernacular, creating an intense paella that is immensly satisfying and yet somehow shot through with loss. Atwood exhibits her marvelous sense of story and language in this book, leaving the reader running for a dictionary of ancient words to reintroduce them to everday talk. Words, lost or unrecorded, die a death, unmourned.

Atwood's latest and strangest novel is truly unlike anything she has previously written, and readers of Atwood's other novels may find themselves flipping to the front, checking to see if her name is really on the title page. Like "The Handmaid's Tale," which was also set in the future, "Oryx and Crake" describes a dystopic tomorrow-land--but there the similarity ends. Featuring an uncharacteristically sparse prose and an abundance of scientific content, Atwood's bitingly satirical and hauntingly apocalyptic novel seems heavily influenced by science fiction novels of the last three decades, even while it recalls such classics as "Frankenstein," "Brave New World" and especially "Robinson Crusoe."

"Oryx and Crake" is technically a single-character novel; "Snowman" (or Jimmy) is the surviving human after a cataclysmic global disaster. He serves as a mentor of sorts to the strange yet harmless "Crakers," who have been so genetically altered that they resemble humans only in their basic appearance. Their blandness is so thorough that neither Snowman nor the reader can tell them apart. Through a series of flashbacks, Snowman describes his closest friends Crake and Oryx and their role in bring the world to its present state; and he mockingly details his attempts at elevating them to the status of gods for the new species. Atwood doesn't really develop these two characters; instead she (through Snowman's eyes) presents only the basic, painful "truth" behind a new Genesis mythology.

The novel, one could argue, depicts a second character: the scientific community. Through extrapolation (one might say exaggeration--but I'm not so optimistic about industrial self-control), Atwood projects into the future the topics of today's headlines: anthrax, genetically modified foods, cloning, gene splicing, weapons of mass destruction, the overuse and abuse of psychiatric drugs, Internet porn, SARS, ecoterrorism, globalization. On a lighter level, she also skewers the moronic corporate brand names flooding the market these days: anyone who thinks her inventions are far-fetched should consider such mind-numbingly lame (and inexplicably popular) trademarks as Verizon, ImClone, MyoZap, Swole, Biocidin, and Rejuven-8.

"Oryx and Crake" may well fall short of some readers' expectations for "a Margaret Atwood novel." But judged as an entry in the genre of science fiction, it's a powerful and visionary masterpiece.

The most boring thing I've read in a long time. Two perfect people having a perfect romance. Skipped over a lot to get to the end which is slightly better than the rest.

Beautiful story of love that lives forever. Nicholas Sparks once again writes a little quick read story about love in a fairly common situation. Unlike "A Walk to Remember" the author gives the characters and the story a lot more depth.

Sparks has the ability to describe scenery and characters to my satisfaction. He doesn't get bogged down in useless characterizations or drawn out plots. He doesn't overwhelm the reader with excess research. He keeps his stories easy to read and not too complicated. As with his other books this is a couple hour read that allows the reader a little escapism without much thought.

I really enjoyed meeting Noah the local country boy who kept his past summer love in his heart and Allie who returned the love. It was also enjoyable to read about the lessons Noah's father had given him to help him mature into a real man. What can you say about a man who likes John Wayne, reads poetry and appreciates the small things in life, has a fit body and truely loves girl? What can you say about a girl who is a painter, comes from an upper crest family and appreciates the love others have for her?

When you have finished reading this story you will wipe your eyes of the welled up tears and realize you're smiling all along. It's a beautiful love story and a good read.

The Notebook is a incredible heart warming book written by Nicholas Sparks, a great author that gets you into loving his books.
The first chapter doesn't really catch your attention but once you begin the 2nd chapter you just can't stop reading. This book is about a boy named Noah who is a quiet, loving, greathearted 17 year old. He falls in love with Allie a beautiful, joyful, and confident girl. Over summer break they share a love so deep that no one could ever rip them apart. Until one summer afternoon Allie leaves town for a reason only she knew. Noah was heart broken. He leaves town and goes a hard and dreadful war, he manages to return safely buy his father died while he was away so now he's all alone. He returns to New Bern his hometown. One afternoon while Noah was sitting in his porch Allies appears as beautiful as ever. Noah is surprised to see her, she doesn't now why she's there but he invites her in. She tells him she's engaged and she just had to tell him personally. She decides to stay for a while. Do you think the love that they had once will bring them back together? Go-ahead find the book " The notebook" it's a book teenagers will love. Don't forget: Bring a box of tissues while your at it. Since Nicholas Sparks describes a certain love so deep so passionate you just need to let go those tears of yours.
Florence Gadala - El Salvador

To be honest, this book isn't nearly as entertaining as HST's other works. The first chapter starts off good with a humorous account of the main character's run in with a fellow airline passenger. Right away I knew that this was going to be classic Hunter S. Thompson. Sadly, that was the first and last time I chuckled while reading this book. True, he was only twenty-two when he wrote this, but it seems that he was either too drunk or too afraid to take any chances with the story. The characters are two-dimensional at best. Paul Kemp, the man whose eyes we peer through for the duration of the novel, is the least developed character. The novel flows at a languid pace and often appears to be monotonous in tone. Nonetheless it is an engaging read that should appeal to a larger audience than his other books. To me the ironic thing is, had he not been consumed by alcohol and narcotics, he could have gone on to be one of the greats. As it stands he is a legendary counter-culture journalist who is more famous for his addictions than his writings. Kids my age--in their early to mid twenties--read HST because of the drug laden content; because it's "cool". Which is all the wrong reasons to read. I fell in love with HST's works when I was a teenager--and when I subscribed to the lifestlye that he describes--and although I appreciate his work now, his prose is absolutely remarkable, I can't help to wonder what could have been. As I said it's a respectable first novel, one that could entertain his fans as well as fans of Hemingway or Kerouac, but it's no masterpiece. I would recommend this novel so one could further understand how a talented writer ends up where he is. Or if you're just looking for a solid read that isn't knee deep in artistic integrity or bourgeois sentamentality, then pick this up today.

I enjoyed "The Rum Diary" though it was my first HS Thompson book. The first point in my rating is Thompson's unique ability to describe landscapes, be they the crowded silling infested streets of St. Thomas to the beautiful landscape of the surreal Vieques (sp?). The imagery was painting beautifully through prose in The Rum Diary. The second point is character development.... This book could have been a bit better if the characters/professions were discussed a little more in depth. As a non-journalist, I felt I didn't know enough on journalism in the late 50's to know any hardships of that career choice, but as the story goes, it seems it (as anything else) has it's political hurdles/hardships. Some of the characters are more impressionable and better developed than others. Sala gives the reader feelings of responsibility/truth/sarcasm; Yeamon gives a feeling of irresponsibility/intimidation/carpe diem; Chenault emotes classic femme fatale feelings; Moberg represents the "the lowest of low"/nothing to lose which by the way is already lost; Lotterman as the classic example of bureaucrat; Sanderson as a star of hope waiting to be embraced! Enjoy, it is a good read.

Also recommended if you enjoy this or have read the following:
On The Road (Kerouac)
Green Hills of Africa (Hemmingway)
To Have and Have Not (Hemmingway)
Huckleberry Finn (Twain)

This is the "lost novel" by Hunter S. Thompson, a book that he started writing in 1959 to make a quick buck. He struggled all through the sixties to get this thing rewritten and published, but because of its quality and Thompson's legendary shakedowns with agents, publishers, and contracts, it died on the vine - until a few years ago. This quasi-fictional account of a New York reporter drifting into a job at the San Juan Daily News is somewhat based on Thompson's experience on the Carribean island in the late 1950. Trying to put Puerto Rico on the literary map like Hemingway did for Paris, he spells out a story of corruption, boredom, and alcohol in a more simple San Juan, before the big booms of the travel booms and technology of the sixties. Paul Kemp, the fictional narrator, describes the coworkers, women, natives, and insane government, riddled with syndicates and kickbacks. The writing here isn't like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - it's more of the Orwell/Mailer/Miller genre, and does a good job of painting memorable scenes of the insanity, camaraderie, poverty, and drunkenness on top of the tropical backdrop. It's not bad stuff, and I wonder if it recently went through heavy rewrites, or if there just wasn't a market for it back in the sixties. Either way, it's a light, fast read at just over 200 pages, and made me wonder if Thompson's other unpublished work would be as satisfying in a trade hardcover. Maybe someday?

After having had this book for some time, I finally set out to make it part of my summer 2000 reading schedule. I am drawn to books of the northern wilderness, which was the initial attraction to this one. I'll state up front that I have not read anything else by Krakauer, so I cannot draw any comparisons as other reviewers have done.

Krakauer tells the tale effectively. He uses an intelligent vocabulary balanced with a conversational writing style. He easily held my attention as the facts unfolded throughout, employing logic and drawing inferences to fill in many questions that remain. He obviously did his research on the central character, Christopher McCandless, and must have invested countless quantities of money and time to gather accurate information. With so many of the facts of this distressing story remaining obscured probably forever, his assumptions and extrapolations about Chris' actual fate are posed as theories rather than as irreproachable conclusions. I appreciate this aspect of Krakauer's account.

Hats off also to the McCandless family, since Krakauer relied upon them not only for information about their son, tragically lost, but also for their courage in allowing many private family issues to be exposed in support of telling the story as thoroughly as possible. Chris' father, mother, and sister are true heroes in my eyes.

I have some degree of understanding of Chris and his northerly wanderlust, and also an appreciation for the not-so-uncommon desire to conquer the wilderness. What concerns me, however, is the apparent arrogance of the central character. According to the author's account, Chris seemed to possess an intermittent wariness about his closest acquaintances, along with outright rejection of others who cared for him much more than he cared for them. He treated some important people who crossed his path as disposable. But probably Chris's most crucial deficiency was the flippant and over-confident approach towards the actual work of survival in the wilderness. He even seemed a bit contemptuous toward relevant learning despite his quality education and intelligence. He especially needed important knowlege about survival in the wilds of the north. However, he apparently rebuffed all attempts from others to assist him in his quest. I have spent considerable time in the extreme north of B.C. (an area not entirely dissimilar to Alaska): it is ridiculous, misguided, and presumptuous to embark on such an adventure with the dearth of equipment, supplies, and knowledge as did Chris. I would want to know everything possible about how to survive such a life and death endeavor. Indeed, I feel a strange combination of sadness and anger as I reflect on Chris's unfortunate departure. Was his death ultimately caused by youthful innocence or arrogant ignorance? It is a question I cannot answer and I commend Krakauer for his deft ability to stimulate thought in the reader rather than provide tidy little assumptive answers.

My only complaint: the personal reflective chapter towards the end of the book. I understand why Krakauer included it (personal connections with the need for adventure, context, struggles with nature, etc.), but for me it was irrelevant and it de-railed the flow of the story.

Perhaps we can learn from Christopher McCandless' experience, not in any attempt to qualify him as a martyr or to label him a fool. I have thought about how my appreciation for the north has changed, how families need to be close, the requirement to really listen to and understand people, and countless other themes which have been tweaked by Jon Krakauer's writing about Chris' misadventure. I recommend this book highly.

In April, 1992, 24-year-old Chris McCandless, a honors graduate of Emory University and former resident of Annadale, Virginia, decides to take off on his own into the wilds of Alaska after living the life of a vagabond throughout the United States for almost 2 years. Unfortunately his lone adventure proves fatal and his decomposed body and belongings are found in an old schoolbus far from a location in which someone might have learned of his travails.

INTO THE WILD recreates the story of Chris McCandless. It begins from the discovery of his body and works backward, as the author decribes not only Chris's background and family, but also his pyche. Not unlike other dreamers, such as Tolstoy, Thoreau, and even the book's author Jon Krakauer, Chris (who changes his name to Alex) follows his dream. Being completely alone with the harsh realities of nature is often looking death in the face. Krakauer compares Chris to other men in the past who have also met their demise alone in the wild. Krakauer also takes the opportunity, since this is his book, to tell of his own adventure alone in the wild. Whether the reader admires Chris for his idealism or berates him for his craziness, Krakauer's book makes for fascinating reading.

There is little suspense (in the traditional sense of the word) in Krakauer's Into the Wild, as anyone who reads the synopsis or picks up the book instantly learns that it is the story of a young man, Chris McCandless, who ventures into the Alaskan Wilderness and who never gets out. Chris' body is found in an abandoned bus used by moose hunters as a makeshift lodge, and Krakauer skillfully attempts to retrace his steps in an effort both to understand what went wrong, and to figure out what made McCandless give away his money, his car, and head off into Denali National Forest in the first place.

His book was one of the most haunting, unforgettable reads in recent years for me. I was mezmerized by passages in the author's other best-selling masterpiece Into Thin Air, such as the passage involving stranded and doomed guide Rob Hall, near the Everest summit, talking to his pregnant wife via satellite phone to discuss names for their unborn child. However, I was unprepared for the depths of emotion felt in reading Into the Wild - it literally kept me up at nights, not just reading but thinking about the book in the dark.

Some reviewers criticized the book because they thought McCandless demonstrated a naive and unhealthy lack of respect for the Alaskan wilderness. This is no hike on the Appalachian Trail - Chris was literally dropped off by a trucker into the middle of nowhere, with no provision stores, guides, or means of assistance nearby at his disposal. He had a big bag of rice and a book about native plants, designed to tell him which plants and berries he could eat. "How could he have been so stupid?", they ask.

Well, I certainly didn't feel compelled to give away my belongings, pack some rice and a Tolstoy novel and walk into the woods after reading the book, but the author does a remarkable job of exploring McCandless the person, including passages derived from interviews with the many poeple whose lives he touched in his odyssey as he drove and then hitch-hiked cross country from his well-to-do suburban home. Some of the more touching parts of the book involved tearful reminisces by some of these old aquaintances when they learned he had perished.

Krakauer also throws in for good measure an illuminating passage about a similar death-defying climb that he foolishly attempted at about the same age as McCandless, with little training and preparation, providing insight into what makes a person attempt a dangerous climb or hike. He even tells several fascinating tales, all of them true, of other recreational hikers who were stranded in the wilderness.

By the end of the book, I thought I understood McCandless' character, and I thought Krakauer was probably right in putting his finger on exactly what caused his death. I was moved by his plight regardless of his possible foolishness in venturing into Denali, and the final scenes involving Chris' family were emotionally devastating. You need not be an outdoorsman to appreciate it, and in fact unlike Into Thin Air the book is completely accessible to those who know nothing about the subject. I think this book is destined to become a classic.