I liked Gilbert's lively, well-rounded portrait of Eustace Conway, but my enjoyment was tempered by one overriding thought: "Boy, that guy is a DICK." This has nothing to do with Gilbert's breezy, funny style. As a matter of fact, in anyone else's hands, I would have filed Conway's story in the "dull, thudding tract" section of my library. It boggles me that a man who is so aware of his natural surroundings, who lives WITH the earth, who conforms himself to the seasons and doesn't expect Nature

3 stars for the writing, 2 stars for the subject, so I'll round up to 3 since that's only fair to the author. I only started/finished this book because I have seen Eustace Conway on a reality show called "Mountain Men" and considered him to be an Appalachian buffoon who makes a mess out of everything. When my friend Joey told me there was a book about him, I had to check it out. Imagine my surprise when I saw it was written by Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote the mega-bestseller, "Eat, Pray, Love".

I have never thought that Elizabeth Gilbert's nonfiction was as good as her novels, but this book comes close. Yes, she won huge acclaim and a gigantic readership for Eat, Pray, Love -- but TED talk notwithstanding, it was in many ways inferior to her novel The Signature of All Things and even to Stern Men. A friend gave me this book, a National Book Award finalist, and the topic fit Gilbert's world view, character fascinations and narrative powers: Eustace Conway, a character as large as any in...

3.5 stars - It was really good.Every time I drive by my local high school and see a metrosexual boy in his skinny jeans with his emo hair, I thank God that I narrowly missed that dating pool selection. Masculinity is not exactly what it used to be, is it? It would be difficult to explain what this book is about because it touches on so very many different topics, but the change in American culture, particularly the sharp decrease in self-sufficiency, is the main focus. There is also an explorati...

Written by Elizabeth Gilbert, before her hit Eat, Pray, Love, this compelling story of Eustace Conway is one I won't soon forget. I'm surprised it isn't more well-known considering the popularity of Gilbert and the similar storyline to the outdoor tale of Into The Wild. This story doesn't have a tragic ending like Into The Wild, but there are many parallels in the early lives of Christopher McCandless and Eustace Conway.Gilbert writes an endearing, witty, humorous, heartfelt, and detailed accoun...

I knew of Eustace Conway before reading this and that was the only reason I read it because I didn't like Eat, Pray, Love. I think this would have been a more successful book about "the last american man" had it been written by Jon Krakauer. Gilbert annoyed me yet again and this book is not really about living a life more like Eustace Conway, it is a book psychoanalyzing his personality, relationship and family issues. Which gets really old, really quick. She tries to argue that Americans are fa...

This was my introduction to Elizabeth Gilbert. It was a random meeting, a freak of fate. Walking into my local public library I saw this book on a shelf I was passing, and thought "What... there aren't any men in America anymore?" Intrigued, I picked it up, positive it was some take-back-the-country-from-the-feminists spiel from some conservative talking head. I was a bit surprised to see it was written by a woman. What the heck… I’d check it out (mostly to see what had happened to all the men i...

Eustace Conway could teach us all a thing or two about how we should live on this earth. Unfortunately, all Elizabeth Gilbert wants to teach us is about his father issues and his relationships with women. There is almost no wilderness ethic to be had; the book reads like the diary of a 12-year-old girl smitten by a mountain man. It's difficult to think of Gilbert as a serious journalist when she constantly fawns over her subject and actually appears (unflatteringly) in the narrative herself. She...

The Last American man is attempting to save our once great nation from its own greed and sloth by living in harmony with nature. Which obviously is not the exciting part of the book. Eustace Conway’s smaller and more successful journeys may be the exciting part of the book. What this guy has done in the name of fun, adventure, and self exertion kept my attention through the first halfish. Then rooting for Eustace to save our nation from the sedentary lifestyle, TV, and stupidity kept me in it fo...

I rarely read books about people unless it is someone I greatly admire. My brother gave me this book and suggested I read it, with the caveat that he had not read it yet but wanted to – so I gave it a shot. As I read this book, I had multiple feelings about it. As it started I really like the book – the stories of Conway’s youth were interesting, his abilities at a young age to survive outdoors were admirable and I could see him maturing into someone worthy of a book, looking forward to learning...

I picked up The Last American Man thinking I was going to read about some environmentalist guy livin' out in the woods to prove a point to the world. While that is basically what the book is about- the author outlines a very different kind of man than you would expect to be living life in the woods. Eustace Conway is not only living on his 1000 acres of land, killing his own food and making his own shelter and clothing from surrounding materials- he is surprisingly a well versed businessman, a t...

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's got it all; history, spirituality, primitive living skills, botany, you name it! I came across this book some where many years ago and have always meant to read it. I'm glad I finally took the time to do so.As a therapist who specializes in working with folks on the Autistic Spectrum I was only in to the 2nd or 3rd chapter when it struck me; "Holy cow, this guy has Asperger's!" Just like a textbook example he had all the special interests (his interest in nat...

Eustace Conway is a terribly fascinating and tremendously unique individual, exactly the sort of person that deserves a biography. Unfortunately, this is not the book he deserves.Too many biographers (which is to say, more than none) make the mistake that Elizabeth Gilbert makes here. She has trouble staying out of the way of the story that would be conveyed by nothing more complicated than a straight narrative with some judicious focus on key events. That, I believe could have made for an excep...