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"Into Thin Air"

(Reviewed by Judi Clark APR 30, 1998)

I read this book in one day and then spent the rest of the evening reading information about the 1996 incident and more recent news on Mt. Everest. Wow! I don't read a lot of real life adventure stories, so maybe I'm  

 

Krakauer was one of the few people to "summit" Mt. Everest on May 10, 1996 and to survive it. But this book is not about his own wit. Instead,  it is about the events that led up to and occurred on that ominous day. Krakauer does a laudable job of describing the nature of climbing and of this mountain in particular, bringing us up to date on the commercialization of the world's highest mountain.

The title of the book is very fitting since it is the thin air that can be blamed for errors in judgement.  Many survival stories will point out the importance of planning ahead and judgement.  But in no other challenge is it is as easy to err because of the physiological stress that oxygen deprivation causes. 

• Amazon readers' rating: from 1,953 reviews

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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

• Eiger Dreams: Ventures among Men and Mountains (1990)
• Into the Wild (1996)
• Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster (1997)
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (July 2003)
• Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (2009)

Movies from books:

• Into the Wild (2008)

 

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Book Marks:

• Wikipedia page on Jon Krakauer
• Tenzing Norgay Adventures web site
• Metroactive review of Into the Wild
• FRONTLINE's Storm over Everest
• Excerpt from Under the Banner of Heaven
• Christian Science of Monitor review of Under the Banner of Heaven
• New York Times review of Under the Banner of Heaven
• MostlyFiction.com review of Where Men Win Glory

 

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About the Author:

Jon Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts but was raised in Corallis, Oregon from the age of two. He studied at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where he received a degree in Environmental Studies in 1976. He married Linda Mariam Moore, a former climber, in 1980.

He is an award-winning journalist who has been published in twenty-five languages around the world.  He is also an editor-at-large for Outside magazine, and has published articles in Smithsonian, National Geographic, and many other periodicals. 

He and his wife, Linda, live in Colorado.