Jon Krakauer

When one thinks of Into the Wild, they often think of Christopher McCandless.  However, another man has a very influential role in the book: Jon Krakauer, the author (pictured left).  He was born in 1954 in Brookline, Massachusetts to Lewis Krakauer, and married Linda Moore in 1980.  He received his education at Hampshire College, becoming a journalist, although he has worked as a carpenter and commercial fisherman.  He is a contributing editor to Outside magazine, which is enhanced by his mountain-climbing hobby.  Although he has written six books, he is best known for Into Thin Air, a novel that describes a climb to Mount Everest, a childhood dream of his.  For Into Thin Air, Krakauer received the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults citation in 1998.  However, he was also a National Magazine Award nominee for an article that was the basis of Into the Wild.  Into the Wild was second book that Krakauer wrote; the first was Elger Dreams, and following Into the Wild, he wrote the famed Into Thin Air.  Although Krakauer was writing about the outdoors and people's passion for nature, he drifted to another topic: religious fanaticism, which most recently led to Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.  Besides these, Jon Krakauer has edited several books, and write multiple magazine articles, and continues to do so.