Jon Krakauer: Encyclopedia II - Jon Krakauer - Bestselling nonfiction

Jon Krakauer - Bestselling nonfiction

The bestseller Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer. The book tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family who, after graduating from college, donated all of the money in his bank account to charity, changed his name to "Alexander Supertramp," and began a journey in the American West. Nearly two years later, McCandless was found dead in the Alaska wilderness. In the book, Krakauer draws parallels between his own experiences and motivations and those of McCandless. Krakauer also recounts the story of Everett Ruess, a young artist and wanderer who disappeared in the Utah desert in 1934 at age 20.

In May 1996, on assignment from Outside, Krakauer was in one of four Mount Everest summit-assault parties that sustained fatalities when they were caught in an exceptional storm high up on the mountain. His writing focuses on two parties: the one he was in, led by Rob Hall, and the one led by Scott Fischer, both of which successfully guided clients to the summit but experienced difficulty while descending. The storm, and, in his estimation, irresponsible choices by guides of both parties, led to a number of deaths, including both head guides. In 1997, he expanded his September 1996 Outside article into his best known work, Into Thin Air, describing those parties' experiences and the general state of Everest mountaineering at the time. It reached first place on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and was among the final three books considered for the General Non-Fiction Pulitzer Prize in 1998. As a result of his writings on the lure of the outdoors, in 1999 Krakauer was awarded Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, in specifics Mormonism. Specifically, Krakauer looks at the practice of polygamy among fundamentalist Mormons and places it in the context of the history of the Mormon religion as a whole, with heavy focus on the Lafferty brothers, who murdered in the name of their faith.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bestselling nonfiction", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki