Into the Wild: Heaviest item in McCandless's backpack was his library

If you’ve never read Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild,” I highly recommend it to those of you with a taste for adventure and the strong itch to wander.

First published in 1996, “Into the Wild” is the story of Virginia native Chris McCandless, who graduated with outstanding grades from Emory University in 1990, promptly gave away all of his money, stopped talking to his family and began wandering the country under the assumed name of “Alex Supertramp.” Over a two-year period, his travels took him all over the American west, the Dakotas and even into Mexico. McCandless, a huge fan of Jack London, eventually set off for Alaska, where he tried to survive on his own deep in the wilderness. In the end, a group of hunters would find his dead body at his camp in August 1992.

The above summary doesn’t do this awesome book justice, and I strongly encourage you to read it for yourself to get the full effect. The book is generally considered to be one of the greatest adventure books of all time. Outside Magazine ranked "Into the Wild" No. 8 on its list of "25 Best Adventure Books of the Last 100 Years" list. The Art of Manliness Web site ranked it No. 4 on its “The Essential Adventure Library: 50 Non-fiction Adventure Books” list and No. 37 on its “100 Must Read Books: The Man’s Essential Library” list.

Also, many of you might be interested in watching the 2007 film adaptation of “Into the Wild,” which was directed by Sean Penn. I actually watched the movie before reading the book and enjoyed it a lot.

Chris McCandless was a fascinating guy. He was highly educated, fatally idealistic and a voracious reader. Among his final possessions were a collection of reading materials and library cards. The follow quote from the book describes the books found in McCandless’s backpack.

“The heaviest item in McCandless’s half-full backpack was his library: nine or ten paperbound books, most of which had been given to him by Jan Burres in Niland. Among those volumes were titles by Thoreau and Tolstoy and Gogol, but McCandless was no literary snob: He simply carried what he thought he might enjoy reading, including mass-market books by Michael Crichton, Robert Pirsig and Louis L’Amour. Having neglected to pack writing paper, he began a laconic journal on some blank pages in the back of Tanaina Plantlore.”

Being the book nerd that I am, I went back through my copy of “Into the Wild” and noted all of the books and short stories that were either referenced by Krakauer, read by McCandless or found with his remains. Here are the lists that I came up with:

Books:
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. The American West As Living Space by Wallace Stegner
3. Breaking Point by Glenn Randall
4. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
5. The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme
6. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (found with his remains and supposedly the last book he ever read)
7. Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour (found with his remains)
8. Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty by W.L. Ruscho
9. Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard
10. The Hungry Summer by John M. Campbell
11. Journal by Henry David Thoreau
12. The Journals of Sir John Richardson
13. Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature by Paul Shepard
14. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
15. Mormon Country by Wallace Stegner
16. The Mountains of California by John Muir
17. O Jerusalem! by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins (found with remains)
18. A Pedestrious Tour, or Four Thousand Miles, Through the Western States and Territories, During the Winter and Spring of 1818 by Estwick Evans
19. Scrambles Amongst the Alps by Edward Whymper
20. Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr
21. The Stars, the Snow, the Fire: Twenty-Five Years in the Northern Wilderness by John Haines
22. Tanaina Plantlore/Dena’ina K’et’una: An Ethnobotany of the Dena’ina Indians of Southcentral Alaska by Priscilla Russell Kari (found with his remains)
23. Taras Bulba by Nikolai Vasilievitch Gogol
24. Terminal Man by Michael Crichton
25. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
26. Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau (found with his remains)
27. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
28. White Fang by Jack London
29. Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash
30. The works of English author Stephen Potter

Short Stories/Essays:
1. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
2. The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy
3. Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy
4. In Search of the Miraculous by Theodore Roszak
5. Ktaadn by Henry David Thoreau
6. To Build a Fire by Jack London
7. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstory (included in a story collection found with his remains.)
8. Letter from a Man by John Menlove Edwards
9. An Odyssey of the North by Jack London
10. Up the Black to Chalkyitsik by Edward Hoagland
11. The Wit of Porportuk by Jack London

In the end, how many of you have read “Into the Wild” or any of the other books mentioned above? What did you think about them? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend and why? Let us know in the comments section below.