American Author Proposal - Jack London

For my american author paper I have chosen to do the great american author Jack London. I chose this author because of the subject matter he writes about and because he is a local author who I have always wanted to know more about. As I said I enjoy the subject Jack London writes about in the books that I am going to read. He wrote a lot about the west and alaska. Some of the books are loosely based upon his own experiences in alaska durning the gold rush in the 1890’s. For me personal the gold rush era is my personal favorite time in history to study, even more so then the world wars. I don’t know what it is about the gold rush that I like I presume it is the thrill of discovery, adventure and great wealth that comes with mining or even finding your own gold.

Although Jack London is not a new author to me because I have been to his house that is located in Sonoma and I have read an annotated version of Call of the Wild, I would like to read more of his writing. None of this annotated nonsense, but some of his actually books in full. After doing a little research on Jack London I found out that there is not shortage of books and other works by him for me to read. He wrote over 50 books and a bunch of short stories. This is very relevant to what his life philosophy was, which was to not wast any of his time. I think he followed his philosophy very well in his life.

As I start to re-read Call of the Wild I am again reminded of how much I love reading about this specific time and place. The alaskan gold rush era has always delighted me in ways that I cannot explain, Its the wild and I love it. Its a strange fascination I know and its something my parents have picked up on. They have asked coming down to the kitchen after hours of reading “how are things up in the yukon?” and I reply “cold as ever”.