Helen Hoover and her husband, Adrian, were trailblazers in the American back-to-the-land movement. Well ensconced in their professional lives in Chicago, they made the decision to follow their dream of a simple existence, pulling up their stakes and plunging into the wilds of northern Minnesota. A Place in the Woods, first published in 1969, describes how the Hoovers gradually adapted to the rigors of wilderness survival, relating events that occurred...