UC Book Club - The Stranger in the Woods

The UC Book Club will next turn its attention to some nonfiction when we meet on Wednesday, July 30, at 4 p.m. Via Google Meet to discuss The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel.  The author uses a series of interviews to explore the experience of hermit Christopher Knight, a 20-year-old man who drove from Massachusetts into the Maine woods and lived completely alone for almost 30 years using his wits and petty theft to survive.  The San Francisco Chronicle calls the book "a fascinating story," particularly in the way that "Finkel manages to pry powerful words from the man who may hold the world title for silent retreat."  The Atlantic calls the book "an absorbing exploration of solitude and man's eroding relationship with the natural world."  Jennifer Senior at The New York Times proclaims that while the book is "campfire-friendly and thermos-ready" in terms of being easy to read (and so great for summer, right?), the interviews, conducted while Knight is in jail, also "raise a variety of profound questions — about the role of solitude, about the value of suffering, about the diversity of human needs."

And coming up later as we look towards fall: the novel Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley followed by more nonfiction with Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green.