Customer Reviews

Looking for Alaska

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

"The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

When Peter shares this quote, heard by Alaskan women referring to the choice of available males, he encapsulates so much of the Alaskan spirit found within his book. From the humorous segments of "The Police Log" to the gripping drama of the 1200 mile Iditarod race, Peter Jenkins helps us find Alaska. In his easygoing style, he takes us behind the doors of everyday Alaskans, as well as some very influential ones, and lets us taste, smell, and feel the adventure of northern life. He also reveals the tedium, the loneliness, and the dangers.

At moments, I found myself awed by the grandeur and scope of this great state; at other times, I laughed out loud--in public, I might add--at Peter's candid storytelling. Who, after reading this, could forget the bachelor auction? Or the toe-numbing descriptions of the winter trail? Or the sorrowful Tina, as she struggles with her heritage and her future?

This is what Peter does so well: he tells great stories. I can almost imagine, as I read his books (all of which I've enjoyed), that he's telling me the accounts over a campfire. He comes across in an honest and unaffected manner. He wears his heart and his spirituality on his sleeve. He lets us see behind the facades of capitalistic life in America.

On the other hand, his writing is downright clunky at times. I have to force myself to "hear" him tell the story, as opposed to editing the numerous odd sentences and wasted words. In fact, I wish a thoughtful editor had waded through here sentence by sentence. At certain points, Peter jumps from past to past perfect tense to present perfect all in one paragraph. It's the way people talk, yes; however, for me, it was a constant distraction.

Don't let my comments turn you away. "Looking for Alaska" is everything I expected and more. If people and places fascinate you, Peter will not disappoint you. Cuddle up with this book and discover new things with a man who writes from his heart. The book is good, a little odd, and ultimately lotsa fun!

I am a Native Alaskan. My people have been in Alaska before it was called ALASKA. I was given Peter Jenkins book as an early holiday gift from my Uncle and wondered if he captured my people and all our people, of all groups, because almost no writers/travelers ever have.

He even found things I did not know about, like `mouse trading', from his Deering, Alaska chapter. Lines like this from the book lift me and illustrate his acute powers of perception, "Millie's voice is like a whisper but has incredible strength. I think the Eskimo way of speaking, soft, slow, focused, and songlike, comes from being listened to and from living surrounded by so much beautiful silence and life."

Actually he has been to many more places in this 590,000 square mile place than almost any Alaskan I have known. There is hilarious, witty stuff,, like this section title: "These Athletes Eat Raw Meat, Run Naked and Sleep in the Snow."

This is one white man that has a caring and discerning heart, this is by far, one of the best books on ALASKA I have ever read. We needed this kind of work here and I want to thank him for hearing my people, the Native Alaskans and all the rest of us, showing us as the alive and vivid world. Since graduating from UCLA I have yearned to be back in my homeland, for a few days reading LOOKING FOR ALASKA I have been.

I first became acquainted with Peter Jenkins when I read "A Walk Across America" in 1991 while I was in graduate school. I quickly bought and read "The Walk West," "The Road Unseen," "Across China," and "Close Friends." These books inspired me to seek out new relationships and new experiences as I moved to Kazakhstan to teach tri-lingual students.

"Looking For Alaska" is a book that fits in well with Peter Jenkins former books. His style reflects a more mature and reflective Peter, but one that loves to relate to new people and places just as much as in "A Walk Across America."

This is not a book that you will want to read fast, but one that you want to hold on to for as long as you can. I highly recommend this book. Peter Jenkins has allowed himself to live the adventures that we all secretly wish we could.

In 1973, Peter Jenkins set off with a backpack and his dog Cooper looking for America. He lived with and listened to people from every kind of life, learning much along the way. From his five-year adventure, he wrote two books: A Walk Across America and The Walk West.

Jenkins now enjoys living on his 150-acre farm in Spring Hill, Tenn. Whenever his sedentary life becomes boring, however, he knows it's time to satisfy his wanderlust; otherwise, as he puts it, he would having nothing to write about.

Stepping to the sound of a different drummer, Jenkins, accompanied by his wife Rita and daughters Rebekah and Julianne, trek northward to Alaska, "the Last Frontier," an austere land that does not suffer fools gladly.

Alaskan winters are not for the faint of heart or tender of foot. In this land of snow, ice, and bitter cold, temperatures drop to sixty, eighty, or a hundred degrees below zero. True, it is a land where one can live one's dreams--even surpass one's dreams--but where dreams may turn into nightmares.

"Alaska makes people hallucinate," writes Jenkins. "It takes hold of you, it makes some believe there is no gravity. They can enter the power and purity of it and be uninjured, jump from a mountaintop and not land on the rocks below."

From his "home base" of Seward, on the Kenai Peninsula, Jenkins travels to Hydaburg on Prince of Wales Island, and on to Tok, not far from the border of Yukon Territory, where he stays at a B&B named WinterCabin: "Where the Stars Sleep Beneath the Northern Lights."

WinterCabin is owned and operated by Donna Blasor-Bernhardt, who has her annual "Before Winter List" of things to do (that must be done). Summertime in Alaska is a window of opportunity to prepare for the long, arduous winter ahead. "Winter in Tok," writes Jenkins, "needs to be spelled in all capital letters, WINTER."

Jenkins describes the running of the Iditarod (from Anchorage to Nome). He travels by snow machine (Alaskans never call them snowmobiles) above the Arctic Circle to the delightful Jayne household (Eric, Vicky, Mike, Pete, Elizabeth, and Dan), some sixty miles from Coldfoot; visits Denali National Park and the Alaska Range; lives in Barrow, the northernmost town in the United States; and moves on to Kotzebue, Deering, and Unatakleet, near the Bering Strait and the closest Russian landfall.

"[Alaska] is filled with people determined to live as free as possible of others' intervention," writes Jenkins. "Alaska may have served as the incubator for the behavior now termed politically incorrect. They despise being herded; if they were sheep, they would never go off the cliff together. More than likely, they'd trample the shepherd."

Peter Jenkins has experienced enough adventures for several lifetimes. In Looking for Alaska, perhaps the best book he has written, he will regale you with firsthand reports of life in our largest and coldest state. Jenkins didn't just zoom in and zoom out of Alaska; he lived among its people for eighteen months and won their trust.

Scattered through this volume are numerous black-and-white photos, plus 29 beautiful full-color photos. If you want an excellent holiday gift for family and friends, or an unforgettable reading experience of your own, put Looking for Alaska at the top of your must-buy book list.

I read a lot, particularly about my favorite part of the world- Alaska, and I am so pleased that I came upon this one. To me, Peter Jenkins really captured the essence of Alaska and the draw that it has for people like myself who just have to make return visits, again and again. If you have visited Alaska, you'll appreciate what he has to say about it's scenic beauty, it's wonderful wildlife and, most importantly, the people who call this home. If you haven't yet visited Alaska, this book will serve as a great "first course". For me, a good book is one that ends too soon. This one ended way too soon.

Peter Jenkins has captured the heart and soul of the Alaska experience like few people can from the lower 48. He describes people and places rarely seen even by lifelong residents of Alaska, avoiding the cities and tourist traps made famous by Cruise Lines and outfitters. With sensitivity to the issues most passionate to Alaska residents he brings the harshness, beauty and isolation of Alaska to life with vivid images and germaine dialogue. For anyone having been to Alaska his stroies will rekindle the flame of wonder that they experienced firsthand. For anyone dreaming of seeing this rare and spectacular place this book will require them to make such a trip their top priority.

Mr. Jenkins both observes and experiences the places he visits,but inclusion of his wife and children makes this odyssey even more intimate than his past accounts. He allows them to recount their own perceptions as well as his own, and in doing so allows the reader to feel a part of the family.

If you only read one book about Alaska from which to form an opinion about it make sure you read Looking For Alaska. You will find a magical land in a jewel of a book.

I am a doctor, and technical reading is a large part of my job. During nine years of college and three years of residency I accumulated an astronomical number of technical reading hours. I read to pass test and stay current... period. You will not see me reading the newspaper on Sunday morning, and as for letters from home, I ask my wife what they say. To read for fun, I don't think so. Until my mother sent me this book "Looking for Alaska" by Peter Jenkins. She knows my love for Alaska after cooking on a seiner in Ketchican, working in canneries in Kenai and Homer, and being a student doctor in Barrow and a doctor in Seward. Also I've been to Dead Horse where the pipe line starts and Valdez where it ends. So I get this book in the mail. The first thing I notice, is how heavy it is, it has 434 pages as I usually check before starting to read. I had just recently been recertified, passing boards again, so my technical reading was at a low. My reading time is one to two hours in the tub most mornings, I'm there right now writing this review. I get that particular habit honest, my dad, a retired school teacher, used to correct tests in the tub. My sister, a lawyer, studied her way through law school in the tub. So one morning I set a cup of coffee on the tub ledge right, and the cordless phone on the left and started Peter Jenkins book, "Looking for Alaska". The author moves his family to Seward, AK, to get the true Alaskan experience for his book. If you have never been to Alaska you can get there for the price of the book. If you have been there or live there now, Peter will take you to places you haven't been, or revisit some of your favorite towns. He doesn't try to impress you with poetic descriptions of sunsets- his writing is just real. When Peter goes fishing in Southeast Alaska and describes the feeding whales, you're there. To travel sixty miles by snow-machine, to experience bush living, you're riding along. During a dangerous encounter with brown bears, you're thinking, I know this guy walked across America but I still think I can outrun him. Next you're back in time whale-watching in Barrow. "Looking for Alaska," really captured the heart and soul of Alaskan life, and Alaskan people.

Having read his "Walk Across America" and being one month away from a 12 day trip to this magnificent place I bought Peter Jenkins' "Looking For Alaska". It put me in Alaska before I got there. The descriptive language he uses along with his uncanny ability to meet people and have them open up to him makes this book a MUST read for anyone planning to go to Alaska, anyone interested in Alaska or anyone who lives in the last frontier. Later, as my vacation took me to places so beautiful they were far beyond my expectations and as I got to meet some of Alaska's inhabitants, some of Jenkins' writings came to mind. He came as close to capturing the essence of this land as is possible. It's people, landscapes and wildlife are beyond description, but Jenkins' gets and A+ grade for his work. A great book about a majestic land and its inhabitants.

Several years ago my boyfriend of the time, while I was a student at University of Michigan, told me that the book that inspired him to travel was A WALK ACROSS AMERICA.I didn't remember the writers name, I did remember his dogs name, Cooper, because it was the same as my brothers. I never read it, too much school work.

But now I have read a Peter Jenkins book about the place I love more than any other place, ALASKA. I have worked here, on and off, for eight years, and LOOKING FOR ALASKA, thrills me with simple, yet often poetic prose. Peter Jenkins is a master story teller. His cast of characters is onen that could only exist up here, they ring very true. Peter paints the winter mountains pink AND orange, as only one who has been in this place in the winter can.

The sections about his time on the ice with the Eskimo whalers; his journeys with his twenty year old daughter Rebekah,(and by the way her writing in this book is often excellent); his portrait of the retired sled dog Kitty (which brought tears to my eyes, as did his kayak trip with his daughter); the story about mouse trading; the Haida princess, Tina; and the two woman of Unalakleet, the Eskimo and the former Debutante are my favorites in a tour de force on ALASKA. Not since McPhee's COMING INTO THE COUNTRY have I read a book that moved me so about my only Frontier.

This is the first book review I have written and it is not a favorable one. I noticed with amazement that of the 95 reader reviews posted on this site up to this point, 92 give this book a four or five star rating. The three that didn't, rated it very low; one of those readers didn't finish the book and one seemed to have an environmental issue that seemed to color the review.

I, on the other hand, did finish the book, but only after gritting my teeth and wading through it (I am bound for Alaska in another month and wanted to get as much insight as possible).

My problems with the book are primarily the poor writing and the author's continual insertion of his own value judgments. Rather than simply allow the stories he tells about the places and people he encounters to create the images in the reader's mind, he insists on telling us what we should think and how we should feel about just about everything. An example of this is the chapter when he describes two teachers, Eric and Dean, living in Deering: "Teachers that come to the Alaska bush from hometowns in Florida or Idaho, like Dean and Eric, or other places Outside should have certain personality traits to maximize their experience. They should possess the wayward, flexible spirit of the explorer, the ability to be thrilled by the unknown, and the `I don't care what people think' attitude of the rebel." He then tries to convince the reader that Dean and Eric fit these categories by telling when they were born and some stories from their childhoods. He doesn't provide much in the way of current information about them other than mentioning some superficial, physical attributes such as "Dean was tall, well built, energetic, and handsome." I still have no idea what these two teachers are like as individuals; they may as well be polar bears wandering out on the ice somewhere.

The flow of the book is also very ragged. For example, there is a chapter that starts out about Hobo Jim and how he entertains. After a couple a paragraphs, we are on a bear adventure that happened three years earlier that had very little to do with Hobo Jim other than he was there. In the final chapter, when the family is packing up to go home, there is a passage that describes his daughter's marriage in Alaska that occurred sometime in the previous year and a half. These unrelated ramblings seem to occur for no reason at all and detract from the story.

The best writing in the book, unfortunately, is taken from passages written by Peter's daughter, Rebekah, in her e-mails and journal. Her passages, however, only highlight how poorly written the rest of the book is.

Lastly, how intelligent can an individual be who loses his father-in-law's rifle on a moose hunt (when he is carrying it on his shoulder) and doesn't even realize it? If this is what Peter Jenkins learned while he was in Alaska for a year and a half, I think it was definitely time for him to go home.

The cover of the book quotes a review that states that "On an Alaskan high, he is unmatched by Jack London or Robert W. Service..." I don't think so.