Manly tales, brute nature

Jack London is the granddaddy of American adventure writing, the sine qua non against which subsequent macho fictioneers such as Kerouac, Steinbeck and the mighty Hemingway must be judged.

Written 100 years ago, this brawny collection of virile adventures in gold-rush Alaska and on the foaming seas of the South Pacific seethe with testosterone-laced immediacy and rollicking, wild energy as men pit themselves against the implacable, pitiless forces of brute nature. Glowing-eyed wolves slaver and snap at the ankles of doomed Klondike gold seekers. When the last match goes out, the “white silence” of the North descends on the unlucky, bringing death to the inept or weak.

At Cape Horn, hurricanes blast schooners into flinders and toss sailors from yardarms into the shrieking maelstrom while windlasses crank and the brutish captain bellows, “Sheet home the royals, lads!” Terse, sinewy, heart-thumping tales that leave you roaring for more.

-- Susan Dworski