Villard

The story of Chris McCandless, a young man who gave away his savings, abandoned his car, and walked into the Alaska backcountry with a bag of rice and a .22 caliber rifle. Krakauer traces McCandless's journey from suburban Virginia to the Stampede Trail with a mix of admiration and dread, and in doing so raises the question every outdoor person has had to answer: where's the line between freedom and recklessness?

Jon Krakauer's account of the 1996 Everest disaster is the book that changed how the world thinks about high-altitude mountaineering. Krakauer was on assignment for Outside magazine when a rogue storm killed eight climbers in a single night, including two of the most experienced guides in the business. The result is a harrowing, self-interrogating narrative that never lets the reader — or its author — off the hook.