Into the Wild
Biography , Public Library Love , Travel / February 3, 2020

Into the Wild. Jon Krakauer. 1996. Anchor. 231 pages. [Source: Public Library]. I’ve been dancing around Into the Wild for nearly 20 years. I was introduced to Jon Krakauer in 2000 with his recounting of a disastrous trek up Mount Everest, Into Thin Air. I was fascinated and traumatized by it. *shrug* For just as many years, I’d been seeing Into the Wild on various book lists and finally took the plunge. Luckily, I didn’t find myself sobbing while reading this book. Instead, I traded it for a latent sense of sorrow. Reading this felt odd because it comes with a spoiler — Chris McCandless is dead. He dies alone in the woods of Alaska, and isn’t found for several weeks. It seems a particularly tragic and anticlimactic ending for someone who set out into the woods with an almost inspirational zeal for what would come next in his life. The bulk of the book, for me at least, was spent hoping to get answers to all my knee-jerk questions. Why’d he go into the Alaskan wilderness with little to nothing in the way of supplies? What happened in the woods that killed him — was it really that treacherous…

Work Less, Travel More
Advance Reader Copy , New Releases , Travel / October 29, 2018

Work Less, Travel More. Tosh Patterson. 2018. 98 pages. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of author.] Whew, this book was so on time for me.  I am “leave-taking challenged,” in that the idea of taking off work is sometimes so overwhelming that I just don’t. Besides that, I have a full roster of other priorities that take all my attention.  All work and no play … you know the rest.  I love that this book isn’t just about how to travel, but about understanding why time away and self-care is so necessary to keeping yourself at your best.  While a shining gem in this book focuses on travel, it’s more than just how to make travelling more accessible and enjoyable. It is about why you need to take care of yourself, regardless of how that looks. First, I love how personal the author gets.  Patterson shares her experiences in such a transparent way that I really felt I was with her in some of the experiences she shares. The vulnerability is refreshing – I don’t enjoy reading “self-help” books from the perspective of someone who’s always had it together. I want to relate to someone who’s dealt with the same issues…