Product Description

Guy Grieve's life was going nowhere - trapped in a job he hated, commuting 2,000 miles a month and up to his neck in debt. But he dreamed of escaping it all to live alone in one of the wildest, most remote places on earth - Alaska.

And just when he'd given up hope, the dream came true. Suddenly Guy was thrown into one of the harshest environments in the world, miles from the nearest human being and armed with only the most basic equipment. And he soon found - whether building a log cabin from scratch, hunting, ice fishing or of course dodging bears in the buff - that life in the wilderness was anything but easy...

Part Ray Mears, part Bill Bryson, CALL OF THE WILD is the gripping story of how a mild-mannered commuter struggled with the elements - and himself - and eventually learned the ways of the wild.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28614 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Scotsman
`Has an energy and pace to it, a compelling, rushing quality, like
a dog sled chasing through the snowscape.'

Review

‘Guy Grieve jacked in his desk job to spend a year alone in the Alaskan wilderness. With only moose, bears and wolves for company, he survived freezing temperatures, built a log cabin, learned to hunt and handle a dog team and had several brushes with death.’

‘The book captures Grieve’s maverick adventure, and has an energy and pace to it, a compelling, rushing quality, like a dog sled chasing through the snowscape . . . also has a real flavour of the frontier, told by a man who shoots a hole in his roof for a chimney with his shotgun, and puts a recipe for beaver ribs and pea soup in the end notes. CALL OF THE WILD may be the perfect present to give your dreamy spouse for Christmas, but you risk him stealing out of the house at 2am with his snowshoes on. One awaits his next adventure with anticipation.’

'Hilarious'

'A wild adventure'

Independent
'A wild adventure'

Customer Reviews

Relaxing but Gripping
After reading part of the story in a newspaper I knew I had to get a copy as soon as it came out.
It tells the tale of one mans dream to get away from mundane life and do something wild and dangerous. He could have went down into any club late at night I suppose, but he chose a safer place.

ALASKA!

Once you have got your head round the fact that he left his wife and two kids behind off he sets after having made contact with an Alaskan family. Without wishing to give too much of the story away, he basically has to build a cabin on his own, surrounded by bears, wolves and little or no contact with anyone.

If he injured himself with a chainsaw or a simple cut he had to deal with it himself. As becomes clear, many people die this way, alone and very vulnerable.
Along with a reluctant partner........Fuzzy the dog, the book really does draw you in with every page. You feel like you know the author personaly by the end of it.

Men or women will love this book, I would reccomend it to the casual or avid reader and anyone thinking there own life is run of the mill. This will probably bring you straight back to reality.

I will be looking for other books of this type thats for sure!

An Incredible Journey
A superb book, an incredibly well written, honest, often hilarious, sometimes emotional account...I couldn't put it down!
Guy Grieve's journey into the Alaskan interior strips away all the romantic notions of wilderness living. His experience is one of this painful realisation tempered by the real drive to survive in one of the worlds harshest environments. Grieve's stamina and determination is admirable, sharing his internal struggle to come to terms with his circumstances with profound honesty and humility. Battling freezing conditions, moose, bears, part feral sled dogs and profound homesickness, Grieve carves out a life for himself that most of us only romantically dream about from the comfort of our armchairs. We may never have the courage to follow that dream but Grieve did and it makes one hell of a story.

Won over
I bought this book out of an appreciation for nature and the outdoors, an interest in Alaska, and a disillusionment (similar to that expressed by the author) in the modern-day wage slavery trap. I was, however, rather cynical about his motives (publicity? making money?) and unconvinced that an equivalent female writer could have anticipated the same level of understanding at leaving their young family behind for a year to go "find themselves". Indeed, I had trouble relating to the whole concept of him leaving his wife behind with the kids while he pursued manly things - but maybe that's just me speaking as a female who loves the outdoors too much and who could never have accepted such an arrangement.

Having said all that, the author is a very decent writer and I was quickly absorbed by his story of survival (albeit with a lot of help from his friends) in the Alaskan wilderness. I also felt that, by the end of the book, he had indeed gleaned a much greater understanding of nature and the need for wild places, and the last few pages were truly inspiring. I put the book down motivated to pursue my own adventures before it's too late.

I have a couple of questions though: is there no more humane way to kill animals (beavers) than with the snares described? As a vegetarian, the author did give me pause for thought as to how I would survive out there, but I'm still troubled by the methods used. Also - he speaks of his Alaskan friends as if they had almost become family - yet, why no photos of them? Just curious.