"Into the Wild" By Jon Krakauer

Title: Into the Wild
Author: Jon Krakauer
Published Year: 1996
Pages: 207
Genre: Travel Essay

Not exactly what I was expecting from the book. I had not even heard about the book until the movie came out, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The movie stayed truer to the person the book is supposed to be about. 

In 1992 Christopher McCandless left his life behind and set upon the adventure of a lifetime with his sights set on Alaska and living off the land. The book traces what history can be derived from the pictures and journal he left behind as well as the encounters with numerous people he encountered along the way while he criss-crossed the country. Eccentric is the one description I come away with of the young man (in his early twenties right out of College) that leaves everything behind to live out his ideals. What kind of person would do this? I finish this book with more questions about McCandless than I have answers.

One of the reasons that this is due to is the way the book is written. In addition to telling the story of McCandless, the author weaves his own adventures he has taken into the story as well as stories of other people who have tried to do the same things unsuccessfully just as McCandless does. It is no surprise that McCandless dies after just four months of being in the wilderness, this fact alone is listed on the front cover description of the book.

Finishing this book leaves me feeling empty and not knowing enough. Most of this comes from the fact that there is not enough evidence to what was actually happened during McCandess' whole track. I am hoping there is more information that has come to light since the time this book was published. I may be seeking some of that information out.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" By Ken Kesey

Title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Author: Ken Kesey
Published Year: 1963
Pages: 311
Genre: Fiction

I would classify this as a classic once I finished it. Its one of those that I started to read years ago, couldn't get into it so I put it down. Just recently I picked it back up, and got hooked right into it. I guess as I aged it was easier to imagine the things going on in the book, I consider myself still young, but obviously more life experiences at 27 versus 19 brought this book to a whole new light for me.

This book was published in the year my mom was born. Being set in a mental institution, it is a book full of struggles and discovery. Mainly the patients within the ward, and their long-term struggle with the "big" nurse. It is told through the eyes of "Chief" who is a Native American and whose father was a Chief before his tribe was paid to leave their land to build a dam. He is thought to be mute and deaf, and so his story is detailed and rich. The newest patient McMurphy is the crusader who tried and turns things around for the men within the ward he is confined too.

Hilarious at time, and moving at others it is an awesome read. Power struggles abound in this book, and it is totally worth the read.

"The Trench" By Steve Alten

Title:The Trench
Author: Steve Alten
Published Year: 1999
Pages: 432
Series: Meg

This is the second book in one of Steve Alten's series. The first book is called Meg and the books are about a prehistoric shark that is the ancestor of the great white. However, these sharks are not your ordinary great white sharks, they are a lot bigger and where the king of all the oceans before they became extinct. These sharks were so enormous that they could easily take down a T-Rex that ventured into waters where they were hunting.

In these stories, this shark that is thought to be extinct is not extinct after all and it surfaces from the Mariana Trench in a freak accident in the first book. The second book continues the story with the offspring of the shark from the first book escaping its tank in California and wreaking havoc. In addition to the creature feature background there is espionage and fight for global power within the book as well as additional animals that are thought to be extinct showing up in the Mariana Trench.

This may all sound a little to far fetched, but Alten has a away of making it sound realistic while also bringing in personal relation problems along the way. He makes it simple to picture this actually happening with the trials that the characters all are going through.

"Myths and Mysteries of the Old West" By Michael Rutter

Title: Myths and Mysteries of the Old West
Author: Michael Rutter
Published Year: 2005
Pages: 161

Everyone can use a history lesson, and this book brings that to the reader. Items of history that most people think they know the answer to are showcased in this book and the author provides the real story behind these mysteries and myths with a bibliography included.

The topics include the following:

• The Seven Cities of Cibola
• The Battle of Adobe Walls
• John Colter
• The California Gold Rush
• The Mountain Meadows Massacre
• George Armstrong Custer
• Sitting Bull
• Comanche
• James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok
• Calamity Jane
• Billy the Kid
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Anyone with a slight interest in history of the western United States should read this book. It is easy to follow and they chapters pack a lot of information in a small span that is easy to follow. I have loaned this book out and the other people who have read it found it just as intriguing as I have.

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" By Douglas Adams

Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Published Year:1979
Pages: 143 (depends on edition of the book, I've seen others listed at 224 and 209)
Genre: Science Fiction

I cannot believe I waiting this long to read this. I decided recently to read it since I do own it and it is on the BBC list of books that they believe the majority of people have only read an average of 6 on that list. I want to read that entire list as my goal for 2011, and I have read over 20 of the books so far over the years.

Adams is a fantastic writer who brings many chuckles and laughs to the reader throughout his book. "Hitchhiker" is a must read for any science fiction fan, and no matter what age group you are in, there will be items in there that will bring out the laughter. This is only the first of five books in his "trilogy", which that just brings a smile to my face as I type that.

Since this is the first of the series, we meet the main character Arthur who ends up being lucky enough to escape Earth right before its destruction. He is with a galaxy hitchhiker who is updating the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which is just the theme behind this book. They have quirky travels through space as Arthur tries to come to terms with what has happened to his own home planet and learning about things that were never thought to have existed in his own mind. To continue his journey, I will need to read the next book in the series. Before I do so however, I will probably get back to reading whichever book I pick up out of my personal collection.

"No Holding Back" By Liz Allison & Wendy Etherington

Title: No Holding Back
Authors: Liz Allison & Wendy Etherington
Published Year: 2007
Pages: 376

Another one of those guilty little pleasure books of mine: NASCAR romance books! I am such a skeptic, that I read these with hoping that I may for once get lucky and the girl doesn't get the guy or the guy doesn't get the girl depending on the scenario. These type of books always end up the same, just how they get there and the factors standing in the way of their "true love" change.

This one involves corporate competition and racecar drivers dating the wrong representative from the wrong company. But alas, they decide to have a "secret" relationship consisting of nothing more of a fling, and who would have guessed, but they fall in love! No way, it couldn't happen, again!

Oh well, I will continue to read these, I need to be a skeptic about something, and I guess these tales of finding true love through bizarre ways will be it for now.

"Breeding Ground" By Sarah Pinborough

Title: Breeding Ground
Author: Sarah Pinborough
Published Year: 2006
Pages: 339

Fight or flight? That has always been an interesting concept to me, and this book shows it as well. When something bad begins to happen to all of mankind, do you run and hide or do you fight? When the chances are slim, like the survivors in this story, sometimes it is just better to barricade yourself in a safe place.

"Breeding Ground" is the story of how an invasive species of spider somehow uses the human womb to create new members of its race. There is no background of how it happened as quickly as it does and throughout much of the book the survivors in the small group are continually learning new things about these creatures. Will they survive against these human eating spiders, or will they all parish?

Besides this general overview, the author is British, and so the book is very British. Wordings and locations all take place around England, with a mention of Scotland a few times. I think after reading this book I need to revamp my knowledge of Great Britain geography to gain  a better understanding of distances and metropolitan centers.

"The Haunting Hour" By R.L. Stine

Title: The Haunting Hour: Chills in the Dead of Night
Author: R.L. Stine
Published Year: 2001
Pages: 153

This collection is of ten short stories that Stine has written. They are all good in my own opinion, and these ones are aimed at the grade school age. The best part of this collection is that at the beginning of each one there is a short introduction by Stine about where the ideas have come from. In the first story he tells a funny story of a duck costume his parents made him wear for Halloween one year. The stories become more personalized than his other works as he is showcasing where he gets some of his inspiration from.

"Liar, Liar" By R.L. Stine

Title: Liar, Liar
Author: R.L. Stine
Published Year: 2000
Pages: 130
Series Information: The Nightmare Room #4

Stine creates yet another series. This man is truly amazing in my mind to write the series' he does and to continue to come up with new ideas and create new series' as well. "Liar, Liar" has developments in it that I have not seen in any other of Stine's books that I have read so far. This series is aimed at the grade school age reader as is Ghosts of Fear Street and the Goosebumps series. It has Stine's approach of warning of what bad things can happen to you if you do things you shouldn't. In his stories, like this one, the outcomes are a little out there and most likely not to happen, but they do have a moral to them.

"Ghosts & Haunts of the Civil War" By Christopher L. Coleman

Title: Ghosts & Haunts of the Civil War
Author: Christopher K. Coleman
Published Year: 1999
Pages: 178

This ghost story book is set up just as that, a book of stories. I felt like I was reading more of a fairytale type book, typical stories to scare children. The book of course though is not directed at children, but at adults. It is just too bad it is not better written. One good thing about the book however is that there is an appendix in the back of the book that shares information on famous haunted sites of the civil war and the areas in which the war took place. I was just disappointed that these places weren't necessarily included in the stories in the book.

"Montana Ghost Stories:Eerie True Tales" By Debra D. Munn

Title:Montana Ghost Stories: Eerie True Tales
Author: Debra D. Munn
Published Year: 2007
Pages: 174

Having started this blog has helped me see just how much of a fascination I hold for ghost stories. I know that when I travel I always try to find local books on ghost stories in the areas I am traveling through, but I pick many of these up at book stores near me as well.

Since I have driven through Montana and actually been to some of the sights in this book, this book was more intriguing than ones that are based on tales from places I have never been. There is more of a link for me if I have been to the place, I like to visualize the place in my mind and imagine these ghosts that are said to haunt, to haunt there. Like I mentioned in my last blog, reading about ghost stories is another way for me to learn the history of places. This is true for this book as well.

"Haunted Kansas" By Lisa Hefner Heitz

Title: Haunted Kansas: Ghost Stories & Other Eerie Tales
Author: Lisa Hefner Heitz
Published Year: 1997
Pages: 215

Lisa does something in this book that I really enjoyed, and that is how she set the book up. She doesn't randomly share a ghost story, she has them categorized into different sections. These sections are: House Ghosts ( Haunted Houses & Buildings), Fort Ghosts, School and Theater Ghosts, Graveyard Ghosts, Ghosts on the Range, Ghostly Oddities, and The Most Haunted Town in Kansas: Atchison. So if there is one type you are specifically looking for, it is easy to find that story, or reference back if there is a need for that as well.

I've been through Kansas once and did not find it too particularly interesting and I will probably never go there again unless it is to the racetrack there, but this book did make it sound interesting. Kansas has a very diverse history and I would have never realised just how diverse until I read this book. As the previous sections mentioned reveal, there is a storied history behind Kansas and exploring the ghost stories are just one way to learn about it. I do have to admit that is my favorite way to learn about a place's history, and Lisa does an outstanding job in her book bringing this to light.

"Haunted Inns of New England" By Mark Jasper

Title: Haunted Inns of New England
Author: Mark Jasper
Published Year: 2000
Pages: 163

Having only been to New England once, I think after reading this book I need to take a second trip back there and enjoy a smaller inn rather than a commercial hotel chain. In addition to my love of haunted stories, this book brought along with it the charms of these small inns that cover all of New England. It is one experience I have yet to have in life, and as of course with reading about it, I have a major want to do it. Looks like I just found another thing to put on my ever-increasing bucket list.

The author also does all the pictures in the book, they are not as professional looking as some of the other hauntings books I have read, but they do bring out the charm of the inns in the black and white photos within. The one complaint I have about the book does come from the photos, and that is that there are no descriptions under them and he did not take some of every inn. This could be due to the owners but there was no mention of why.

"Eye of the Fortune Teller" By R.L. Stine

Title: Eye of the Fortune Teller
Author: R.L. Stine
Published Year: 1996
Pages: 105
Series Information: Ghosts of Fear Street #6

Ghosts of Fear Street is another series from famed children's and young adult author R.L. Stine. Compared to his other series, this one is closer to the Goosebumps series and is another way to bridge into the more advance Fear Street series. The majority of the books in this series take place on the well-known Fear Street (at least if you have read some of Stine's other works), but this one takes a little trip off of Fear Street for some scares.

The two kids in this book take a vacation with their family to the beach. The more dominant of the pair decides she wants to have her fortune read by a fortune teller, when they mock the fortune teller they begin an adventure into one of their worst nightmares. They find out the fortune teller that they visited is actually not a living fortune teller and she has greater powers than they could have ever imagines. In order to battle her, they must overcome their own fears in order to fight her evil.

"Buffalo: Natural History & Conservation" By Harold Picton

Title: Buffalo: Natural History & Conservation
Author: Harold Picton
Published Year: 2005
Pages: 72

The first time I saw a real live buffalo up close was in May of 2005 while traveling through Utah. We stopped at Antelope Island which is an island in the Great Salt Lake. From then on I was fascinated by these creatures, even more so after I took a road trip in 2006. During 2006 my brother and I took a road trip through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota to celebrate my finishing of my bachelor degree in college. I saw many buffalo throughout that trip, and even went to the protected range in Montana.

It is during this trip that I picked this book up and purchased it from one of our many stops. I have finally been able to read it, and have a much greater understanding of this animal that holds my curiosity. I find them to be beautiful and majestic, one of Mother Nature's better animals. This book is basic in telling how they evolved, how they came to their present state and general facts about them. It is an easy read with beautiful pictures and perfect for almost any age. I probably enjoyed it so much based on my love for this animal.

"Road to Nowhere" By Christopher Pike

Title: Road to Nowhere
Author: Christopher Pike
Published Year: 1993
Pages: 212
Genre: Young Adult

When I was reading these originally I was in the 6th grade when I started. At the time I did not think Pike's books were that realistic because of the things that were going on in them. As I began re-reading and finding new works I hadn't read such as this one, I discovered why I had this opinion; these books are directed more at the later high school age. The fact that I was an advanced reader in 6th grade, got me to the point of reading his books sooner. His books are like a more mature subject matter of Stine's Fear Street. Drugs, sex and violence can be found in all of them. And this one was no exception.

"Road to Nowhere" I found especially intriguing for the subject matter. Three people are riding up the California coast together, two of them know each other before, and the third picks them up as hitchhikers. Each one has their own story to tell and as the night progresses they continue to share their stories and strange things continue to happen in the middle of the night. What is the real point behind these stories and why are they telling them? Without them, you would not make it to the end and it has a great surprise ending. I personally did not see it coming despite I have read some of his other books. Pike is a fantastic writer and has a way of drawing you in.

"Enigmatic Events" By Gary L. Blackwood

Title: Enigmatic Events
Author: Gary L. Blackwood
Published Years: 2006
Pages: 72
Series: Unsolved History

More directed at the younger reader, this book takes into account as the title proclaims "enigmatic events". I thought of these more as weird or unsolved events through history. If you have a child, about 5th or 6th grade and they are showing an interest in this type of history, this book would be a good start. The author has a few others that are similar and deal with other true unknown outcomes. It includes events such as the "Mary Celeste" and the colony of Roanoke. If you haven't heard about either of these as well, this may be a good jumping point for you as well.