Going To Extremes

Going To Extremes (1981)
By Joe McGinniss — Plume
ISBN: None, but it does boast a Library of Congress Card Number: 81-11137
Condition: Used, as sold by Crappy Old Books

This is the book you buy when you want to visit Alaska, but only in theory—preferably from the safety of a sofa, a blanket, and central heating that actually works.

In Going To Extremes, Joe McGinniss heads north to the vast, freezing, moody, occasionally surreal landscape of Alaska and then writes about it with the slightly stunned energy of someone who has realised they may have taken the concept of “getting away from it all” a bit too literally. It’s part travelogue, part social commentary, part “what if the frontier never really ended, it just got colder and more complicated?”

This particular copy, bravely re-circulated by Crappy Old Books, comes lovingly pre-weathered:

• Softened corners that suggest it’s already survived several armchairs, one or two overnight bags, and at least one “I’ll just read a chapter before bed” that turned into three.

• Pages gently tanned, like they’ve been left under a weak northern sun for several decades.

• A very official-sounding Library of Congress Card Number (81-11137) instead of a modern ISBN, because in 1981 your book didn’t need a barcode to be serious—it just needed a card and a sense of purpose.

Inside, McGinniss roams through Alaska meeting the people who chose, for reasons best known to themselves, to live at the edge of everything: prospectors, dreamers, stubborn locals, disillusioned newcomers, and the occasional person who seems to be there purely to prove a point to someone in the Lower 48. He writes about boom towns, bleak towns, and places where the scenery does most of the talking and the humans just try to keep up.

Expect:

• Wild landscapes where the nearest neighbour might be a mountain, a moose, or a very opinionated river.

• Big questions about wilderness, development, and what happens when people try to civilise a place that has absolutely no intention of behaving.

• A tone that drifts between amused, horrified, fascinated, and “I cannot believe this is actually happening,” which, coincidentally, is also how most people feel after their first Alaskan winter.

As for the physical specimen you’re getting from Crappy Old Books, it may feature:

• The odd mysterious stain that is almost certainly coffee and not, say, bear-related.

• Subtle warping that implies someone once read parts of this in a steamy kitchen, a damp tent, or next to a kettle that was going full tilt.

• Maybe even an ancient price sticker from a long-vanished bookshop, clinging on like a determined lichen of capitalism.

This is an ideal book if:

• You like your travel writing with a side of “What on earth is wrong with people, and why do I kind of admire them?”

• You secretly enjoy stories about places where the environment is not a gentle backdrop but an ongoing threat.

• You’ve ever thought, “Maybe I’ll sell everything and move somewhere remote,” and would like to be gently talked out of this idea with vivid, well-written evidence.

In 1981, this was contemporary reportage. Now, it’s also a time capsule: Alaska caught at a particular moment, before smartphones, before Instagram, when “in the middle of nowhere” really meant nowhere, not “bad signal.” Reading it now is like eavesdropping on the past trying to decide what the future is going to be, while standing on frozen ground.

And yet, despite the grand themes, at heart this is still a modest paperback: slightly worn, quietly witty, and utterly determined to keep existing. The only thing “extreme” about this specific copy is the journey it has already survived to end up in the welcoming arms of Crappy Old Books, waiting for one more reader.

Take it home. Read about people going to extremes while you remain safely at room temperature.
After all, it’s much easier to contemplate the outer edges of human endurance when your biggest immediate risk is dropping a used paperback in the bath.

Congress Card: 81-11137

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