Jack London Books

I FIRST READ THIS BOOK IN 1975 GIVEN TO ME BY JACK LONDONS OLDEST FAN. HE READ EVERYTHING BY LONDON MANY TIMES.HE READ ALL THE BIOS ON LONDON AND SAID THIS WAS THE BEST.THIS MAN SPIDER ROCHE GAVE ME THE BIO TO READ AND I COULDNT PUT IT DOWN.IF YOU WANT TO KNOW JACK LONDON THIS IS THE BEST BIOGRAPHY ON THE MAN.HIS LIFE RAN THE GAMUT. IT ENDS SADLY. READ THIS BOOK.I HAVE SEARCHED FOR THIS BOOK TO BE IN MY LIBRARY SO I CAN ALWAYS GO TO IT WHEN I FEEL THE NEED.THANK YOU MR.STONE.

It took me some time to track down this book, but I had heard that it was the best Jack London biography out there, and it is that and a whole lot more. Irving Stone writes a very easily readable book in which he takes a deep look at the life and character of an amazing man. I read it once in a night, I'm reading it again, and don't think it'll ever make it back to the bookcase for more than a week!

By Jack London The story I read is called The Call of the Wild. The story is about a dog named Buck who was stolen from his owner (Judge Miller) and sold to people in the north. He was used as a sled dog and he was beaten and abused by many people. He had to watch his friends be beaten to death because they would not follow orders. Indians kill his friends. Buck found other friends and lived in the wild. I liked the book and you should check it out.

I loved the book and reccomend it to everyone. it was sad because Buck was stolen and not able to enter the 'call of the wild'. I enjoyed it because it was emotional and i enjoy those kind of books. Thank You Jack London(even though he's dead) for writting such a wonderful book.

I bought this book new for under $5, shipping included. It is soft cover with some great black and white illustrations that really do add to the enjoyment of the book. The overall quality is good but not great. For someone who loves history and adventure stories like I do, I have been woefully late in coming to Jack London's work. All these stories I should have read in my youth but somehow missed them. How exciting to be reading them now. I absolutely love the the north country and the first person style of writing Jack London uses to carry us into his adventures. So wonderfully descriptive without ever becoming tedious. You will be enthralled.

I found this on the bargain table at a bookstore. This includes three GREAT Jack London novels, Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf, along with 15 of his Alaskan wilderness short stories and Cruise of the Dazzler as well.This book can be found on amazon.com for less than a dollar most of the time so as far as bang for your buck you can't do better than picking up a copy of this book.

The novelist and adventurer Jack London was an alcoholic at an early age. This colorful memoir -- one of the first in America to treat the issue of alcohol abuse -- was written to encourage the prohibition efforts of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. London does condemn the overuse of alcohol, but his barroom tales make an equally strong case for its allure. The emphasis London places on the reasons why people drink, and drink to excess, fills this book with exciting characters and locales -- "the cameraderie of drink" is London's own phrase, as another reviewer notes. This personal revelation by one of America's premier adventure writers must have been shocking to a nation that viewed its drunks with a fairly tolerant eye. It is certainly an important book for those interested in the literature of alcohol abuse in this country.

Following the worst of London's alcoholic periods he wrote this autobiography beginning with his first taste of alcohol, his first experience at being drunk,and his first hangover-all at the age of five. London went on to "earn his manhood spurs" through hard drinking at the steamy waterfront bars on the San Francisco Bay. Claiming never to have acquired a taste for the stuff, London stresses the important role of the saloon in cultivating alcoholism in young men. He brings to vivid life the romantic allure of a place full of sailors with names like Whiskey Bob, whose stories of 'round-the-world journeys, barroom brawls, and dangerous sea adventures mingled with the "comaraderie of drink." At once a highly personal work of intense emotional power and an unsparing social commentary on the evils of drink, this masterpiece of autobiographical literature first stunned a world audience in 1913, and today continues to strike a resounding contemporary note.

Location of illustrations and the text are remarkably well laid-out. Reader friendly, does not require flipping pages to find illustrations. Kingman took ten years to create this most reliable reference and chronology.

If you have any interest in Jack London, you want to have this book. Buy it to thumb through at the same time as you read any other biography. This is like a lovingly assembled scrapbook. It is extremely rich in material; there must be, oh, an average of three photographs or pictures on each of its 276 pages.

Kingman seems to have found photographs of just about every place Jack London ever lived or worked and just about every person that figured in Jack London's life. How about... Johnny Heinold, owner of the "First and Last Chance Saloon?" here on p. 38; the schooner "Sophia Sutherland" on p. 43; here's Jack in Kelly's Army; here's the Erie County Penitentiary where he spent a month... here's George Sterling, here's Anna Strunsky, here's Cloudesley Johns... Here are pictures of Jack as a young sailor, Jack in the Klondyke, Jack at the Bohemian Grove, Jack on the farm...

This is a "pictorial biography" and the interest is in the pictures. The writing isn't inspired, but it is useful as a detailed outline of the events of Jack London's life. It has a useful bibliography.

Besides the story "To build a Fire" which I read in junior high this is the first collection of stories by London that I have purchased and read. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing is descriptive and alternately heartwrenching and heartwarming ( as is life). I am so glad that this was the first London book I bought, it will not be my last. You can get a good hardcover for under $5. Buy it, read it to your kids and grandkids, put it on your shelf and pull it down every year and reread it. Great adventures. Mr London makes you want to go where he has gone and do what he has done. Wonderful!!

Of the many collections of Jack London short stories, this one has to be the best. Of the 50 stories authorized by Jack London's family, there are two versions of London's famous "To Build a Fire"- the original he wrote in 1902 and the the more famous one that he rewrote in 1908 from memory of the original version.

Notes at the end of the book give insight to each story detailing his struggles to get many published, the amount he was paid, and commentary from Jack on some of them.

What London resident could ever have imagined that the monstrous deeds of a maniac in 1888 would endure for over 100 years? Yet here is is the latest - but certainly not the last - book to chronicle the doings of history's most famous serial killer. Author Richard Jones takes a slightly different tack however in focusing on re-creating the London scene wherein Jack the Ripper did his dirty deeds rather than just recounting the deeds themselves.

Jones' volume is part history, part travel guide to London's West End circa 1888. Using contemporary press acounts, period photographs and present-day images, he does an excellent job of immersing the reader in life in the West End and the effect "Jack" - assuming there was only one murderer! - had on its residents. He very wisely, in my opinion, doesn't spend time running through 'the usual suspects' but concentrates on portraying how terrible life was for West End residents even before the Ripper started stalking its dark and filthy streets.

All in all, a fresh and interesting look at murderous times long ago. Ripper fans will enjoy.

Anyone interested in "Jack the Ripper" will surely find this book to be of interest. As a matter of fact, I found it more interesting than any of the previous books I have read about this most famous of all murderers. Each of those books had a story to tell and something to prove, but, although convincing, they didn't necessarily tell the whole story or perhaps even the real story. This book takes a different tack, it simply takes you back to the streets of the Whitechapel District of London in the 1880's and lets you walk with and listen to those who lived there, many of whom were prostitutes living on the streets in fear for their lives.

You will also get to meet and follow the police as they examine the evidence, strive to dampen panic and suppress riots, and struggle to find the killer. In the process you'll likely discover that the police weren't as incompetent and inept as we have been led to believe. On the contrary, you will see that they were up against an almost impossible task - finding an illusive butcher who struck in the dead of night; a man whose ghastly work was made easier for him, and the police's work much more difficult, by the simple fact that his victims willingly led him to the dark and secluded alleyways and darkened yards where he butchered them. You will also find that the problems of the police were compounded by the fact that this all took place in a part of London where, due to the numerous slaughter houses and butcher shops resident in the area, the sight of bloody hands and bloody clothes on the streets was an everyday and every night occurrence.

I approached this book having already read three earlier books about "Jack" each purporting to identify the real villain. And, I must say, until I read each succeeding book, I was firmly convinced that the previous man must surely have been the killer. I finally concluded that only two separate and completely unrelated men were the lone killer (although my favorite of the two has presumably been discredited by the "experts"). Of course, that was a somewhat unsatisfactory result. But with so many potential villains floating around, I naturally found this book to be of particular interest. Would any of these killers, I wondered, hold up under closer, and less biased, scrutiny?

Oddly enough, none of my suspects were even mentioned in this book, and, stranger still, much of the evidence which pointed in their directions appears to have had little or no significance to the case. For example: poisoned grapes - none were found; royal coaches - none were mentioned by any witnesses; "doctor's" black bag - the bag was owned by a man who was hurrying home and just happened to be passing the murder scene (he later identified himself to the police); coins and/or body parts arranged in some ritual fashion - coins were found at one murder scene, but neither coins nor body parts were arranged in any particular way, etc.

So, if you are a Jack the Ripper addict, this book might change your mind on a thing or two, and, if you have a pet Ripper suspect, it may disillusion you a bit. But, if you don't know much about the case, it will surely whet your appetite to know more, and it's as close as you're likely to get to the real story of the Whitechapel murders. As for me, I'm sticking with my suspect until someone can convince me otherwise.

Here Jack London gives us one of the earliest examples of prehistoric fiction, when only a few jaw bones of hominids had been found and theories on their origin were highly speculative. Jack is amazingly intuitive, and as always an enjoyable read.

J. Lyon Layden
The Other Side of Yore

London rarely fails to please. Before Adam is no exception, and this collection includes short stories suitable for use in an anthropology course (as I did with the short story "Relic of the Pliocene"). Before Adam is a surprisingly prescient reconstruction of a prehistoric world inhabited by more than one hominin species (in this case, what could be an early arboreal genus, a cave-dwelling "Folk" remotely resembling neandertal, and fully modern humans armed with anachronistic weapons). Well comparable to William Golding's novel The Inheritors, but not as anthropologically accurate. Still, a good imagining for the early twentieth century.

Author of more than fifty books, Jack London, born in San Francisco, grew up across the bay in Oakland. Variously a tramp, a fisherman, a longshoreman, and a sailor, London also worked as a gold prospector and a war correspondent. Among his influences are those of Social Darwinism, Nietzsche and Marx. Although his writings suggest a complexity of ideas, he is commonly categorized as a literary naturalist. His adventure stories of Alaska and the Pacific continue to fascinate new generations of readers.--- In Before Adam, the protagonist relives, in his dreams, the pre-stoneage life of one of his proto-human ancestors.--- Children of the Frost is a collection of stories set in the frozen wastes of the Yukon during the "Gold Rush".