The Stranger in the Woods: Uncovering the Fascinating Tale of the Last True Hermit

Blackstar5: Loved it. I wish I knew where he is now and the dynamics of his family.

United States on Mar 09, 2024

T. C.: The book was ok. It fleshes out the story of the man who hid in the woods for decades and how he survived

United States on Feb 09, 2024

Tracy N: Great read!
Affordable, fast and efficient shipping.
Thank you!

Canada on Sep 24, 2023

Linda M.: Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Not a big book to read, never the less intriguing story Of a mans choice to withdraw from society and live a solitary life.

Australia on Apr 05, 2023

Mr Stephen Catterall: This book is easy and straightforward to read and contains a compelling, fascinating story. I myself share a number of traits with the 'hermit' and the author. I love nature and solitude. I have camped by myself for a few days at a time. The thought of camping for 27 years... it's impossible to comprehend. The idea is something that both attracts me and fills me with fear. It's easy to imagine doing what this hermit has done when you're reading this book somewhere warm and cosy. In truth, there's no way I could replicate their feat.

I have no reason to doubt the facts as related in this book. It's unfortunate that people desire to label this guy as either someone to admire or someone to disregard as a thief. People are complex. I admire the hermit in his ability to survive at his camp for so long, but there's no denying that at the same time he committed many crimes and in doing so created much fear in the local community. He has been labelled 'crazy' but I think he is just 'different'. He didn't appear to suffer any specific 'trauma' during his childhood that might have spurred his actions. I would speculate that there was a slow build up of tension between the hermit and...

United Kingdom on Dec 08, 2022

Aristos C.: Narrativa cativante sobre um rapaz de 20 anos que saiu para viver escondido em uma floresta e só foi descoberto 27 anos depois. O autor fez um brilhante trabalho jornalístico sobre essa história real, demonstrando muita empatia pelo personagem. O livro é muito bem escrito. Não se limita à narração de tudo que aconteceu nesse período de reclusão e após a descoberta do eremita, mas faz também um levantamento sobre o fenômeno da vida isolada da sociedade em várias culturas e épocas históricas, a partir da opinião de diversos autores.

Brazil on Aug 15, 2018

Mountain Buddha: …[L]ocals were enraged by Knight’s actions. The actual items he stole might be minor, but he also took people’s peace of mind. Their sense of security. Some said they were afraid to sleep in their own cabins, afraid for decades.

‘I felt violated, over and over again,’ said Debbie Baker, who has owned a place on North Pond with her husband for more than twenty years. ‘I lost count how many times he broke in.’ Her two sons, when they were young, were terrified of the Hermit. They had nightmares about him.

So frequently, in our modernized and “progressive” society, we romanticize the escape into the wild; and while it’s true that people have been retreating to nature for its restorative powers since the beginning of time—Jesus, Buddha, Gilgamesh, St. Anthony—it was really the literature of the Romantic period—Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge – that began to codify the retreat into Nature as a literary, as well as a physical, aesthetic. Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”, and Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein, who found the French Alps “sublime and magnificent”, and whose “scenes afforded [him] the greatest consolation that [he] was capable of...

United States on Apr 06, 2018

Hopeful: I read The Stranger In The Woods in a day and I love it for many different reasons. The writing was wonderful, it drew me in and I found it very hard to put down. I especially love the parts of the story that were written from Knight's perspective...I felt like I understood him, if only a little. I realize that understanding him is easier when you're given all the facts, which Michael did very well and I appreciate, but I could relate to Knight for personal reasons...

When I was in high school my father took me and my siblings from Massachusetts and plopped us in the woods of Maine, where we lived in a tent from early summer into mid fall. My three siblings and I hiked, twice a week, about five miles to the tiny town and filled several gallon jugs of water from a public water spout, then we walked back to camp, jugs in backpacks and hands. We cooked food on an open campfire and washed ourselves and our clothes in a brook. It was not the life a teenage girl wanted and I chastised my father for many years for making me live that life....his response was always, "you learned a lot, didn't you?" ...."no", I would argue. But, the truth is, I did learn a lot and now, 30 years...

United States on Mar 19, 2018

Gabriele: This book is very nice and the story is peculiar. It's an easy read and you will indeed find difficoult to stop and not keep reading.

Italy on Dec 09, 2017