This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection
Carol Burnett, 2010
Crown Publishing
267 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307461186

Summary
This Time Together is 100 percent Carol Burnett—funny, irreverent, and irresistible.

Carol Burnett is one of the most beloved and revered actresses and performers in America. The Carol Burnett Show was seen each week by millions of adoring fans and won twenty-five Emmys in its remarkable eleven-year run. Now, in This Time Together, Carol really lets her hair down and tells one funny or touching or memorable story after another—reading it feels like sitting down with an old friend who has wonderful tales to tell.

In engaging anecdotes, Carol discusses her remarkable friendships with stars such at Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, and Julie Andrews; the background behind famous scenes, like the moment she swept down the stairs in her curtain-rod dress in the legendary “Went With the Wind” skit; and things that would happen only to Carol—the prank with Julie Andrews that went wrong in front of the First Lady; the famous Tarzan Yell that saved her during a mugging; and the time she faked a wooden leg to get served in a famous ice cream emporium. This poignant look back allows us to cry with the actress during her sorrows, rejoice in her successes, and finally, always, to laugh. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—April 26, 1933
• Where—San Antonio, Texas
• Education—University of California, Los Angeles
• Awards—Six-time Emmy Award winner
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California

Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer and writer.

Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she debuted on television. After successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Carol moved to Los Angeles and began an eleven-year run on the The Carol Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978.

With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show combining comedy sketches, song, and dance. The comedy sketches ranged from film parodies to character pieces which featured the many talents of Burnett herself who created and played several well-known and distinctive characters. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
These short memories, of the people Burnett met and interviewed over the years, on- and off-camera, bring it back—the golden age of variety shows.... Burnett has a writer's eye for the moment, the detail, the slip that reveals character. She's never mean and always grateful.
Los Angeles Times

A disappointment.... Burnett, 76, is a consummate storyteller, and there are enough gems amid the dross in This Time Together to keep a tolerant reader interested.... Fans will probably love Burnett’s new book. But if you really want to know about her, read One More Time.
St. Petersburg Times

In short, there’s a lot of humor in this book, and many of the funny stories are told at the teller’s own expense. What you won’t find here is very much beneath the surface about the heartaches Burnett had to deal with in her life.... In the end, the memoir gives us what we want most of all: another chance to spend just a little time with a woman who still makes us laugh.
San Francisco Chronicle

Fans of both the show and the actress will enjoy this mostly lighthearted though sometimes poignant look back at Burnett’s career.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for This Time Together:

1. Has your opinion of Carol Burnett changed after reading This Time Together—or has it confirmed your prior opinion of Carol. What kind of person is she...how does she come across in this book? Is she someone you would like to have dinner with?

2. What was the overall tone of this book—humorous and lighthearted as you would expect in a Carol Burnett memoir? Or sadder, more poignant than expected? What do you make of the fact that Burnett rarely, if ever, takes aim at others, that she speaks well of almost everyone? (Okay, be honest — were you hoping for more Hollywood gossip?)

3. Burnett maintains a bewildered attitude toward her fame, going so far as to claim that her success is due, in large part, to luck. Would you say she's too modest, even hard on herself? Is her success due to talent, hard work, and perseverance? Or would you agree that her success is, in fact, a matter of luck?

4. Many of the stories related in the book are funny, some laugh-out-loud hilarious—especially the ones with Lucille Ball. What other anecdotes made you laugh? Do you have any favorites in the book?

5. This is Burnett's second memoir. If you've read her 1986 memoir One More Time—about her years growing up in Texas and her start in show biz—how the two compare? Is there enough new information to fill out a second memoir? If you haven't read her first one, does This Time Together inspire you to do so?

6. Are you surprised about the clashes offstage with Harvey Korman? Is there anything else in the book that surprises you?

7. You could describe Carol Burnett as earthy, loud, and rambunctious. Does her friendship with Julie Andrews, whose public personae might be called "prim"—surprise you? The two seem such opposites.

8. What does it reveal about Burnett that she was over-awed, even intimidated, upon meeting Cary Grant—even though, by then, she herself was a star? What accounts for her tendency to become awestruck?

9. How does Carol describe her marriage to Brian Miller? What makes her marriage work, especially with a husband 20 years her junior? (So, like, could that even happen outside Hollywood?)

10.One reviewer said This Time Together is "anything but a tell-all book. In fact, it's barely a 'tell-some' book." Do you agree? Are important stories skimmed over—especially, perhaps, the death of her daughter Carrie and how Carol marshaled the strength to cope with her grief? Why do you suppose readers learn of Carrie's death through a reprint of her New York Times obituary? What more would you have liked to have learned? Or is the book revealing enough as is?

11. In the era of off-color television sitcoms and YouTube videos, would The Carol Burnett Show be successful on prime time today? Or is it a cultural relic from one of TV's golden eras?

12. What were some of your favorite Carol Burnett shows? Which skits stick in your mind? (How about the one with Tim Conway as an incompetent dentist...and Harvey Korman as the patient. Catch it on YouTube—it's worth seeing...over and over...!)

(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans
Dan Baum, 2009
Spiegel & Gau
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385523202

Summary
After Hurricane Katrina, Dan Baum moved to New Orleans to write about the city’s response to the disaster for The New Yorker. He quickly realized that Katrina was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans, not by a long shot. The most interesting question, which struck him as he watched residents struggling to return, was this: Why are New Orleanians—along with people from all over the world who continue to flock there—so devoted to a place that was, even before the storm, the most corrupt, impoverished, and violent corner of America?

Here’s the answer. Nine Lives is a multivoiced biography of this dazzling, surreal, and imperiled city through the lives of nine characters over forty years and bracketed by two epic storms: Hurricane Betsy, which transformed the city in the 1960’s, and Katrina, which nearly destroyed it. These nine lives are windows into every strata of one of the most complex and fascinating cities in the world. From outsider artists and Mardi Gras Kings to jazz-playing coroners and transsexual barkeeps, these lives are possible only in New Orleans, but the city that nurtures them is also, from the beginning, a city haunted by the possibility of disaster. All their stories converge in the storm, where some characters rise to acts of heroism and others sink to the bottom. But it is New Orleans herself—perpetually whistling past the grave yard—that is the story’s real heroine.

Nine Lives is narrated from the points of view of some of New Orleans’s most charismatic characters, but underpinning the voices of the city is an extraordinary feat of reporting that allows Baum to bring this kaleidoscopic portrait to life with brilliant color and crystalline detail. Readers will find themselves wrapped up in each of these individual dramas and delightfully immersed in the life of one of this country’s last unique places, even as its ultimate devastation looms ever closer. By resurrecting this beautiful and tragic place and portraying the extraordinary lives that could have taken root only there, Nine Lives shows us what was lost in the storm and what remains to be saved. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Dan Baum has been a staff writer for The New Yorker, as well as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

He is the author of Citizen Coors: An American Dynasty and Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. He has written numerous articles for such national magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Wired. While living in New Orleans to research Nine Lives, Dan wrote a daily online column for The New Yorker. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
At about page 65, something very real clicks in Nine Lives. The small, stray, unobtrusive details that Mr. Baum has been planting along the way begin coming together and paying off, like a slot machine that's begun to glow and vibrate. By the final third of Nine Lives, as the water begins pouring into the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, I was weeping like an idiot in the coffee shop where I was reading.... Nine Lives may be this young year's most artful and emotionally resonating nonfiction book so far, and for that, to Mr. Baum, a belated New Year's toast.
Dwight Garner - New York Times

Aware of journalism's failure to reimagine New Orleans as it had been before the hurricane, Baum has written a splendid book that is two-thirds prologue. The winds and waters of Katrina don't begin battering the nine lives he puts on display until the reader is past Page 200, by which time his characters and their city have been realized in all their generosity and folly.
Thomas Mallon - New York Times Book Review

A spiritual saga strikingly different from [Baum's] magazine reporting. He says little about the political dynamics of Katrina and submerges his own voice as he weaves the experiences of nine New Orleans residents into a sinuous narrative. His technique brings to mind Robert Altman's film "Nashville," cutting between short scenes and longer vignettes from the lives of people who rarely intersect.... I applaud Baum's shimmering portrait of the city. He adroitly moves his subjects through parades, prison, divorces, sex changes, fancy balls and gun brawls—yes, the stuff of life here—showing New Orleans as a magnetic, enduring force.
Jason Berry - Washington Post

Baum’s reporting, which focuses on nine longtime New Orleans residents, is superb. So is his writing.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

What makes these people so compelling is not where they live, nor that you know what lies ahead for them. It's about skill and craft.
Dallas Morning News

Brilliantly reported.... Compassionate and clear-eyed, Nine Lives brings you into the heart of an American tragedy.
People Magazine

Reporter Baum (Citizen Coors) arrived in New Orleans two days after the levees broke after Hurricane Katrina. He admits his initial accounts of the disaster were flawed, but with this captivating collection of nine linked profiles, Baum has rectified what he claims was his narrow interpretation of events. "While covering Katrina and its aftermath for The New Yorker, I noticed that most of the coverage, my own included, was so focused on the disaster that it missed the essentially weird nature of the place where it happened." Baum begins the narrative with the 1965 battering of the Ninth Ward by Hurricane Betsy and concludes in 2007. He captures the essence of the city "through the lives of nine characters over 40 years, bracketed by two epic hurricanes," people such as Billy Grace, the king of Carnival and member of New Orleans' elite; Tim Bruneau, the city cop haunted by images of Katrina's destruction; and transsexual JoAnn Guidos, who finds a home and, following Katrina, a sense of purpose. Baum, an empathetic storyteller, has nearly perfectly distilled the events, providing readers with a sensuous portrait of a place that can be better understood as "the best organized city in the Caribbean rather than the "worst organized city in the United States." Baum's chronicle leaves readers with a bittersweet understanding of what Americans lost during Hurricane Katrina.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) What gives this collection of stories its added punch is the way Baum uses the fictional techniques of literary journalism.... The underpinning of solid reporting makes all this believable and powerful.
Booklist

One of those rare occasions when journalism crosses the threshold of art.

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Nine Lives:

1. Which of Baum's nine characters do you most relate to...and least relate to? What does each character reveal about the city of New Orleans—in terms of its culture and socio-economics?

2. How would you describe New Orleans? What is the portrait of the city—before Katrina—that comes through in Baum's book? His coverage goes back to 1965: how did the city change over those 40 years (up to and before Katrina)? What part of New Orleans and its history do you find most appealing...fascinating...or disturbing?

3. If you've ever traveled to New Orleans...or lived there...or still live there, talk about your experiences—about the city you know and love...or know and hate!

4. Talk about the ways in which each of the nine characters experienced—and was changed by—Katrina. How did Katrina reveal the inner strengths and/or weaknesses of the nine lives?

5. Baum covered New Orleans as a journalist during and post Katrina. Why did he depart from his journalism and decide to write this book? What did he believe a book could reveal that his articles and essays could not?

6. What were your reactions reading this book? What most horrified you about Katrina? What surprised you? And what have you learned from Nine Lives?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of a Global Citizen
Firoozeh Dumas, 2008
Random House
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345499578

Summary
Mining her rich Persian heritage with dry wit and a bold spirit, Firoozeh Dumas puts her own unique mark on the themes of family, community, and tradition.

Explaining crossover cultural food fare, Dumas says, “The weirdest American culinary marriage is yams with melted marshmallows. I don’t know who thought of this Thanksgiving tradition, but I’m guessing a hyperactive, toothless three-year-old.”

On Iranian wedding anniversaries: “It just initially seemed odd to celebrate the day that ‘our families decided we should marry even though I had never met you, and frankly, it’s not working out so well.’ ” Dumas also documents her first year as a new mother, the experience of taking fifty-one family members on a birthday cruise to Alaska, and a road trip to Iowa with an American once held hostage in Iran.

Droll, moving, and relevant, Laughing Without an Accent shows how our differences can unite us–and provides indelible proof that Firoozeh Dumas is a humorist of the highest order. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Abadan, Iran
• Reared—in Tehran, Iran, and Whittier, California, USA
• Education—University of California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in northern California

Firoozeh Dumas was born in Abadan, Iran. At the age of seven, Dumas and her family moved to Whittier, California. She later moved back to Iran and lived in Tehran and Ahvaz. However, she once again immigrated to the United States; first to Whittier, then to Newport Beach, California.

Kazem, her father, dominates many of her stories throughout her 2004 memoir Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America. She takes pride in her Iranian heritage, but at the same time, mocks her dad's fascination with "freebies" at Costco and television shows like Bowling for Dollars.

Growing up, Dumas struggled to mix with her American classmates, who knew nothing about Iran. She also retells firsthand experiences of prejudice and racism from being Iranian in America during the Iranian Revolution. However, throughout hardships, she emphasizes the significance of family strength and love in her life.

Dumas is a wife and mother. She often visits schools and churches (as for example in November 2008 at the Forum at Grace Cathedral) to discuss her book and conduct book talks. As a result of Funny in Farsi's success, Firoozeh Dumas was nominated for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Not only was she the first Iranian author to be nominated, she was also the first Asian author to hold such an honor.

Firoozeh became a hot topic when she challenged Ayaan Hirsi Ali to a debate on women in Islam.

Funny in Farsi was a finalist for both the PEN/USA Award in 2004 and the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and has been adopted in junior high, high school and college curricula throughout the nation. It has been selected for common reading programs at several universities including: California State Bakersfield, California State University at Sacramento, Fairmont State University in West Virginia, Gallaudet University, Salisbury University, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and the University of Wisconsin–Madison

She is also the author of Laughing Without An Accent (2008), which is a memoir containing a few stories about her childhood, but mostly stories about her adventures as an adult. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
There’s such warmth to Dumas’ writing that it invites the reader to pull up a seat at her table and smile right along with her at the quirks of her family and Iranians and Americans in general. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist

Follow-up to Dumas's warm debut, Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (2006), expanding the timeline to span her life from childhood to motherhood, and everything in between. Many of the pieces are nothing more than five-page campfire stories, such as the tale of a monkey who showed up on the balcony of her family's apartment, or the article documenting the difficulty of tracking down somebody to translate her first book into Farsi. A few chapters, most notably the discussion of her uncanny memory for faces and dialogue, are less jokey and more observational. One highlight is a more-or-less direct transcription of a college speech; Dumas loves speaking at schools, "even though most of my invitations are prefaced with Khaled Hosseini was not available.' " The author's fleshed-out, Letterman-like top-ten list ("Write thank-you notes," "Don't get credit cards yet," "Watch less television") doesn't necessarily impart the most important life lessons the youth of America will ever receive, but Dumas isn't about teaching: She's about entertaining the masses. Her gentle, acute observations of human nature are similar at times to those of David Sedaris, albeit with a considerably lower snark factor. In content, her essays recall comedienne Margaret Cho's stand-up routines about her Korean family's attempts to assimilate into the United States without sacrificing their identity. Dumas focuses on the lighter side of fitting in, a tactic that has its merits—she's undeniably entertaining—but a few serious cultural insights a la Marjane Satrapi wouldn't have hurt. Offers a few laughs, but little else.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Firoozeh says that humor differs from one culture to the next, but it also varies from person to person. Is there something that you find hilarious that others don’t?

 2. In Laughing Without an Accent, Firoozeh uses humor to tackle some very difficult topics–like the death of a loved one in “Seyyed Abdullah Jazayeri,” or Iranian censorship of her previous book in “Funny in Persian.” Do you believe humor is appropriate in all situations? Or are there times when it is not appropriate?

3. Cultural norms are very different from country to country, such as all middle-class families having servants in Iran, unlike in the United States. After reading Laughing Without an Accent, which stood out for you? Are there any from other cultures that you have encountered that surprised you?

4. In “Maid in Iran,” we learn that Firoozeh’s father changed the life of the maid’s son by making sure he had access to education. Do you believe that we each have the power to change the course of someone’s life? Why or why not? Who in this culture, besides Oprah, changes lives?

5. In “The Jester and I,” a slightly misused word causes a great mix-up. Discuss a time when language barriers or mishaps have caused confusion for you.

6. School is very different in Iran than it is in America. Many Americans believe that the educational system in the United States is failing many of its students. If you agree, what changes would you make? Why is it difficult to make changes? What are the obstacles?

7. In “My Achilles’ Meal,” we see that Firoozeh’s parents felt she was too young to deal with the death of her grandmother. Each culture, and each family, deals with death in a particular way. How does your family deal with death?

8. Firoozeh is guilty of being “the boy who cried wolf” in “Me and Mylanta.” Have you ever had a similar experience? Was it difficult to regain the trust of the person involved?

9. Everybody’s family embarrasses them. Discuss family quirks that cause you to cringe.

10. It may be true that both kids and adults rely too much on television to entertain them. Do you think not having a tele- vision would make someone more creative, or unlock some creativity that has been stifled by hours of TV?

11. “In the Closet” proves that Firoozeh’s mother definitely believes that one man’s trash is another’s treasure. Do you believe this is true?

12. Firoozeh writes about the challenges of finding appropriate clothing for her teenage daughter. How do you feel about the clothing choices available for tweens and teens, especially for girls? Do you think the type of clothing one wears affects one’s life?

13. Have you ever falsely accused someone of wrongdoing, as in “Doggie Don’t”? Did the accusation come back to bite you, as in Firoozeh’s case?

14. How would you feel if someone accused you of wrongdoing, or disliked you simply because of where you are from? How does the media’s portrayal of people from different countries shape how people feel about them?

15. Firoozeh describes some foods she finds disgusting, whether maggot cheese, bovine urine, or the unsettling andouillette described in “Last Mango in Paris.” Discuss a time when you were presented with food that you found difficult to eat. How did you react? Was your host offended? Some people travel so that they can try new foods; others do all they can to avoid trying new foods. Which could be said of you?

16. Selling a cross-shaped potato proved not to be the best get-rich-quick scheme for Firoozeh and her son. Have you ever tried a get-rich-quick scheme?

17. If you were to give a graduation speech, what bit of wisdom would you want to impart to the students?

18. Firoozeh made friends with an American once held hostage in Iran. What does this friendship say about the power of the ordinary person to act as a bridge builder? Do you think bridge building between nations is solely the job of politicians?

19. “Most immigrants agree that at some point, we become permanent foreigners, belonging neither here nor there.” If you are an immigrant yourself, or the child of an immigrant, do you agree with that statement? If you are not, what could you do to help the immigrants in your community feel at home?

20. What does the term “global citizen” mean to you? Do we have to lose something to become a global citizen, or do we simply gain? Firoozeh was born in Iran and raised in the United States, and is married to a Frenchman. She considers herself a global citizen. But how can others become global citizens? Does it involve living in another culture, or can we simply learn to think globally?

21. Firoozeh says that she thought guilt was a pillar in parenting. Do you know someone who uses guilt effectively? Have you ever used guilt? Did it work?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer, 1996
Knopf Doubleday
207 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307387172


Summary 
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.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir.  In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his  cash.  He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented.  Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away.  Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life.  Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless.  Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naivete, pretensions, and hubris.  He is said  to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding—and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio 
Krakauer was born as the third of five children. He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington.

More
In 1974, Krakauer was part of a group of seven friends pioneering the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range in Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences. Though he neither expected nor received a fee, he was excited when the Journal published his article. A year later, he and two others made the second ascent of The Moose's Tooth, a highly technical peak in the Alaska Range.

One year after graduating from college (1977), he spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb, an experience he described in Eiger Dreams and in Into the Wild.

Much of Krakauer's early popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Architectural Digest.

Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, which was adapted for film (director Sean Penn) and released in 2007.

In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, particularly fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism. The book inspired the documentary, Damned to Heaven.

2010 saw the publication of Where Men Win Glory, about former NFL football player Pat Tillman, who became a US Army Ranger after 9/11. Tillman was eventually killed in action under suspicious circumstances in Afghanistan. (Adapated from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
At the beginning of Into the Wild, you share the outraged reactions of so many who read the article by Mr. Krakauer in Outside magazine from which this book developed. As one angry Alaskan put it in a letter to the author: "While I feel for his parents, I have no sympathy for him. Such willful ignorance...amounts to disrespect for the land... — just another case of underprepared, overconfident men bumbling around out there and screwing up because they lacked the requisite humility. [Yet] in Mr. Krakauer's eloquent handling... because the story involves overbearing pride, a reversal of fortune and a final moment of recognition, it has elements of classic tragedy. By the end, Mr. Krakauer has taken the tale of a kook who went into the woods, and made of it a heart-rending drama of human yearning.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times

A narrative of arresting force. Anyone who ever fancied wandering off to face nature on its own harsh terms should give a look. It’s gripping stuff.
Washington Post

Engrossing . . . with a telling eye for detail, Krakauer has captured the sad saga of a stubborn, idealistic young man.
Los Angeles Times

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Virginia, who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men's Journal, retraces McCandless' ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977, when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless' death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods
Publishers Weekly

In April 1992, 23-year-old Chris McCandless hiked into the Alaska bush to "live off the land." Four months later, hunters found his emaciated corpse in an abandoned Fairbanks city bus, along with five rolls of film, an SOS note, and a diary written in a field guide to edible plants. Cut off from civilization, McCandless had starved to death. The young man's gruesome demise made headlines and haunted Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer, who saw "vague, unsettling parallels" between McCandless's life and his own. Expanding on his 1993 Outside article, Krakauer traces McCandless's last two years; after his graduation from Emory University, McCandless abandoned his middle-class family, identity, and possessions in favor of the life of "Alexander Supertramp," wandering the American West in search of "raw, transcendent experience." In trying to understand McCandless's behavior and the appeal that risky activities hold for young men, Krakauer examines his own adventurous youth. However, he never satisfactorily answers the question of whether McCandless was a noble, if misguided, idealist or a reckless narcissist who brought pain to his family. For popular outdoor and adventure collections. —Wilda Williams
Library Journal

Some Alaskans reacted contemptuously to Krakauer's magazine article about a young man who starved to death one summer in the shadow of Denali.... A moving story that reiterates the bewitching attraction of the Far West. —Gilbert Taylor, American Library Association.
Booklist

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Into the Wild: 

1. Many readers find it hard to have sympathy for young McCandless: his stubborn idealism and lack of preparedness, as someone has pointed out, amount to arrogance. Yet to a one, critics point to Krakauer's power as a writer to evoke sympathy for the young man. Where do you stand?

2. To what extent does Krakauer's own history as a young rebellious risk-taker color his judgment of McCandless? Or does Krakauer's own experience serve to enlighten his—and your— understanding of Chris?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
 
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