Non-Fiction Narrative

For my non-fiction narrative I am reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer.  A few picture I feel show what I have read so far are:
http://photos.igougo.com/images/p388067-Denali-Alaskan_wilderness.jpg
http://hitchwiki.org/en/images/en/thumb/0/02/Dumpingsnow.jpg/300px-Dumpingsnow.jpg
Some of the things that stand out to me about the story is how stubborn Chris, or Alex, is.  He seems to not want any help or support.  He didn't want any help, he seemed to think that he knew all he needed to know to survive but clearly he didn't.  As a goal for myself I feel I need to find a better way to read so that I retain more of what I read.