Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

This is the harowing tale of Chris McCandless, a young man from a well-off family who hitchhiked into the Alaskan wilderness after giving up all of his worldly possessions. He was found four months later, dead, in an Alaska campground.
The accounts of McCandless's life are at once intriguing and infuriating. By Krakauer's description, he seems at times like a petulant, arrogant, whiny trust-fund baby. At other times, accounts of his life show him to be a rugged individualist, a man capable of surviving fairly extreme conditions with little supplies or equipment. Krakauer pieces together diary entries, letters to friends and family and personal accounts of those who knew McCandless to unravel the story of his final days.

Chris begins by donating his trust fund to a charity, burning the money in his wallet, and hitting the road in his car, destination unknown. He takes on the moniker Alexander Supertramp, and makes his living as a migrant worker. When not in solitude, he lives among the homeless, staying only as long as it takes to gather the resourcers to get him to his next adventure. He's able to drive across the country, to travel alone by boat down the West Coast. He's not a lunatic, and by all accounts he was friendly and giving and very personable. He loved to discuss the state of the world with anyone who'd listen. Something inside of him stopped him from making any deep, lasting connections to any people or places. There are hints of family unrest, the pressures of living up to his father's standards. But even this does not seem like cause enough to spur McCandless onto his odyssey.

Krakauer also compares and contrasts his life with those of other outdoor adventurers. He was not the first to attempt such extreme self-imposed isolation, nor is this condition caused by some kind of anti-social mania. Others have taken roads just as extreme, some lived to tell about it, others perished just like McCandless. While many are left with the conclusion that McCandless was simply too reckless and ill-prepared, I was left with the feeling that his arrogance, coupled with a few small planning errors, led to his ultimate demise. That he hung on in the remote Alaskan wilderness as long as he did with meager supplies and only the food he could hunt or forage is astounding. The larger questions loom long after the end of the book: what was he seeking in his solace? What did he know or learn about the world that could benefit us all?