As a graduate student at Duke University English Department, Ken Ilgunas lived out of a van so that he could (and did!) graduate without incurring debt. You can read about it in "Walden on Wheels," his first book, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary. His third book, "This Land is Our Land," was released this spring. On The Spine, he talks about how his love of video games as a child prepared him for a love of books in college.

KEY QUOTES:

"Being exposed to stories in [video games] prepared me for a love of reading later on."

"I have this rule where if a book doesn’t grab me in the first 15 to 20 pages, I’m just done with it. And it’s probably not a great policy."

"I could point to a constellation of influences. There was 'A Walk Across America' by Peter Jenkins, 'Into the Wild' by Jon Krakauer, and 'Walden' by Henry Thoreau, and just a number of books that kept telling me, You don’t have to live this ordinary life. You can just get this crazy idea and make it real."

See a list of all the books and writers Ken mentions in the Show Notes section of The Spine's website: https://thespineshow.com/show-notes