Great read - fascinating examination of an unique person. I enjoyed the book very much. I think Finkel did a great job of telling the story of how Christopher Knight retreated to the woods for 27 years. Hoping that I get the chance to discuss this book with other readers.

My feeling after reading the book is that Knight had had enough of the societal responsibilities of the world. He chose to retreat from what society expects of people. But his choice to live off of the people who do follows society's expectations seemed to be hypocritical. I would have respected his choice to retreat if he had found ways to provide for himself. In the long run, I feel he was lazy and selfish. I am still amazed that he survived 27 winters in Maine. I am also perplexed by the fact that in 27 years he only spoke 1 word to another person. I wonder how he perceives his choices. Strong recommend from me.

This story of a man walking away from society is amazing due to what he accomplished. The writer has shown us the events that unfolded after his apprehension, and discussed the possible causes, but I think that Chris Knight would much rather have simply died in the woods, unknown. Are we doing him a further disservice by gawking at his achievements? Yes, in committing the thefts, he has broken trust with civilization, but he obviously didn't feel he had any other options, and was willing to live and die by his decision.

I had never heard of this man or his story before but this book fascinated me from the get-go. The idea of not speaking or seeing anyone for 20+ years was so interesting to me as an introvert and non-social person. I wondered how someone could accomplish that. The book was well-written and really entertaining to read. The story, from start to finish, flowed so well. I would definitely recommend this book to others!

Imagine surviving in the Maine woods for 27 years--including winters as cold as 20 degrees below zero--and only interacting with another human twice during that entire time ( once with a brief "Hi!" and once with body language only ). Fiction? No. Truth? Yes. Writer Michael Finkel brings us the story of this modern day hermit in his newly released biography entitled A Stranger in the Woods beginning his book with these lines: "Before Christopher Knight stayed in the woods for a quarter century straight, he never once spent the night in a tent. He grew up less than an hour’s drive east of his campsite, in the village of Albion, two thousand people and four thousand cows." Twenty-year-old Knight entered the Maine woods in 1986, leaving the society of modern day America. He survived in a secluded tent and only had brief unsought contact with other human beings twice in 27 years--once to utter his only spoken word to another human being, "Hi", in that entire time. Knight found peace living this life of seclusion. It ended when he was caught--with the help of sophisticated surveillance equipment--while robbing food in the middle of the night from a nonprofit camp for disabled children (including kids on the Autism Spectrum). Author Michael Finkel has pieced together Knight's story after nine hours of personal interviews with Knight, and through research and other interviews. In his book not only does he speculate why Knight did what he did, and explain how he survived, he also examines hermits through history and their motivations for choosing that life. Scientific research about noise and busy lives is also included. I found Knight's story interesting, but found the general information about hermits and why some people seek seclusion even more interesting. Most of our lives are so hectic, I imagine we have all wondered what it would be like to escape to a peaceful place.

A short story that Finkel wrote into a book - filling it with lots of interesting insights into hermits and other solitary individuals. Finkel's connection, as much as it can be called that, with Chris gives the reader a deeper look into the story without compromising Finkel's delivery of a full well rounded reporting. Finkel really researched the "stranger", his family, neighbors, and other people affected by his unwelcome intrusion into their lives. A really good story. I ended having just as many conflicting emotions and opinions about Chris after reading this book as I did when I started. Good job Mr. Finkel!!

When Christopher Knight is arrested for breaking and entering and discovered to be the "Maine Hermit," the man behind over 25 years of small-scale food and provisions thefts in a rural, mostly seasonal, community, one mystery is solved and many others are left unanswered.

Michael Finkel's compelling nonfiction account of Knight's 27 years alone in the woods- and his life before and after- explores both how he survived and what may have led him to choose at the age of 20 to leave behind his family, his job, and all the comforts of modern society.

Christopher Knight is a fascinating character, and through his letters and interviews with Finkel we come to see him not as merely a human curiosity or campfire legend, but as a witty, introspective person for whom solitude seems to have been a necessity of life. Recommended for all non-fiction readers.

An absolutely fascinating book about a way of life unknown to almost everyone. Chris walks away from society and has virtually no human contact for the next 26 years - WOW. He survives in the Maine woods and secures what he needs by robbing cabins in the area, always ones not inhabited by year-round residents and always at night. Not the nicest thing to do, but he sure carried it off. I found the book to be quite interesting and also kind of sad, but it is a quick read and a very good one at that.

I'm not a huge fan of non-fiction, but I am intrigued by people who don't need people to survive, so I picked this one up. The story of Christopher Knight, a man who lived for decades in the woods, alone, is both fascinating and a little sad. I'm rarely completely torn by a story, but Knight has me ripped in half. Part of me wants to just release him back to the woods, because that's what he's good at and it's where he longs to be. And part of me says "but he was a thief, and that needs to stop."

A good read that will make you think about your own need for connection and what is really valuable in life.

BookFilter review by Janet Rotter: It’s not every day that that a book comes along that deserves a permanent place in your library. But Michael Finkel’s “The Stranger In The Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, “ is such a book, not only for the detailed way it documents the remarkable survival of Christopher Knight, who spent over twenty-seven years alone in the woods of Maine, but for its advocacy and respect for those who respond differently to modern civilization and its noises, its crowding, its sensual overload. At age 20, after a road trip to Florida, Knight suddenly was seized by a plan. Returning to where he grew up in rural Maine, he abandoned his car and ventured into the woods, knowing he would never return willingly to civilization. Just a few miles from his childhood home and often within hearing distance of fishermen and summer tourists -- whose homes he burglarized more than one thousand times for food and fuel as well as any books and magazines left behind -- Knight eventually found the perfect spot, a clearing bordered by dense hemlocks on one side and large boulders with a hidden entrance on the other. Nobody discovered him which is, of course, what he wanted. That is until the local police caught him in the act of burglary with a highly sophisticated GPS tracking system and took him off to jail. Luckily, Michael Finkel, a journalist from Montana who had just returned from a retreat at an ashram in India, read about Knight and wrote to him, asking for an interview. Having just felt the need to be alone by himself for a short time, Finkel was sympathetic. What followed were nine meetings over a period of time, not to mention his own expedition to Knight’s camp, in which he gained respect and even admiration for his subject. Knight was no freak. He was not homeless or unemployable. He was found mentally competent to stand trial for all those burglaries, which he did with compliance and a sense of shame. When Finkel interviewed him, he found someone with a droll sense of humor who never liked engaging in petty thievery just to stay alive. He was a clean-looking man who wore eyeglasses and could tell the passing of time by the length of his beard. He found someone who just didn’t want to be in the world and had learned to live unto himself in a way people hadn’t usually done for a very long time. Various medical possibilities were considered and dismissed. But whatever the root causes, as one Asperger Syndrome expert said, Knight was simply a hermit. What difference does it make why? Finkel began to see Knight as living the purest hermit life imaginable, a man who abandoned everything but the simplest necessities for the happiness of being able to live alone. Finkel defines three kinds of hermits but Knight didn’t seem to fit into any of them. He didn’t leave society in protest or to find spiritual enlightenment or to enact a specific purpose, like Thoreau did to make a point about society. In fact, Knight thought Thoreau was a bit of a fraud since he entertained visitors. Knight was a man who was willing to risk death from freezing or starvation just for the bliss of being able to float on his back in a lake at three a.m., joyously alone, watching the stars in silence. Silence. Quiet. Solitude. Those were the operative words in Knight’s life. It should tell us something. If people like Knight are an extreme reaction to the world around us, shouldn’t we see them as a warning of what the modern world is doing to us, to our sensibilities and our senses? Shouldn’t we begin to ask ourselves how far away we are moving from our purer selves as we pay more attention to what others around us think and say rather than to our inner voice? We can’t be Knight, of course, but can’t we be just a little bit like Knight, to discover who we are when we are alone? In clean, natural unaffected prose, the journalist Michael Finkel leads us to ask those kinds of questions through this significant book. I read it alone -- if not in pure solitude -- and thoroughly enjoyed. – Janet Rotter

Fascinating glimpse into the life and mind of a hermit, in particular, Chris Knight, the North Pond Hermit. While living such a solitary life is conceivable and/or possible to only a few, Chris Knight made it his reality for 27 years. Amazing! Michael Finkel did a wonderful job researching this book and getting Mr Knight to open up as much as he did.

There are three types of hermits in the world, according to journalist Michael Finkel: protesters, pilgrims and pursuers. But Christopher Knight doesn't seem to fit any of these categories. So why, at the age of 20, did he drive into a forest in Maine and disappear for 27 years, his only human interaction including a single "hi" with a passing hiker? This book uses the incredible story of Knight, "the last true hermit," to explore themes of solitude, introversion and the meaning of the life.

I read a lot about this story when it was in the papers. In fact I read every story I could find. The "North Pond Hermit" as Christopher Knight was known, was a solitary man who was living alone in the woods for decades. He had a little camp set up that was totally invisible to the outside world and he sustained himself by stealing from nearby seasonal cabins in northern Maine. Big news when he was finally found, captured and brought to justice. But what happened next?

Finkel tells the story and does a good job giving you details of Knight's life both in the woods and out of the woods, without pretending like he had more access to Knight than he really did. They exchanged some letters and had a few face to face visits, but Knight was an extremely private person and did not really encourage or seem to enjoy these visits. Finkel winds up in the awkward journalistic situation of trying to create a relationship with a person who doesn't want one. I appreciated that Finkel didn't embellish, didn't make it seem like they were friends, and didn't try to tie this all up with a bow at the end. Along the way there are a lot of good anecdotes about hermits but not enough to make you tired out by all the not-the-main-story stories.

This book answered a lot of the questions that I had about the initial flurry of stories and made me want to go spend some more time outdoors.