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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Collection of Stories
Review: "Eiger Dreams" is a compelling collection of twelve stories by mountaineering writer Jon Krakauer. Included are several first person accounts of his own adventures, including his life-defining attempt to climb the Devil's Thimb in Alaska as a young man and his later failed attempt to scale the Eiger face. Krakauer also failed in his attempt to climb Mount McKinley, but manages to say more with one of his defeats than other climbers do with their success.Krakauer also proves himself to be a first rate reporter with his accounts of other mountaineering stories. Particularly good is his tale of John Gill, the man who practically invented "bouldering." Krakauer goes on to describe waterfall climbing, canyoneering and the horrors of being tent bound with his deft narrative touch. At 186 pages, and featuring his easily readable prose, the book is a delightful experience for those who like good adventure stories of the kind featured in Outside Magazine.
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Summary: I got vertigo reading this
Review: I've read three of Krakauer's books including this one. Into Thin Air is eclipsed by Kenneth Kamler's Doctor On Everest, but Krakauer's own Under The Banner Of Heaven and Eiger Dreams are in a class by themselves. I have never had a fear of heights, but the stories in this book, particularly the one of his climb of the Devil's Thumb, a volcanic chimney in Alaska, lifting hundreds of feet into thin air is perhaps one of the most evocative pieces of writing I've ever read. If you are fascinated by mountins and the madmen and crazy women who climb them, this is your book. Either it will make you drop everything and head for the high remote places of the world, or render you at least sane enough to say, "I think I'll take my adventure in another way." Say in some weird polygamous community in southern Utah or northern Arizona. Krakauer knows mountains, and he knows how to take us with him, shaking, sweating and not daring look down, up a shear, icy face. This is great outdoor adventure writing. Highly recommended. wfh
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Summary: Exposure
Review: This is an engaging, brilliantly-written set of stories, not about just the experiences, but about the mindsets of climbers. Did I say enganging? I should have said spellbinding. The book could have been titled "Exposure." Every one of the climbers, including the author, and including many who die, is given a history and reference-frame from which you may evaluate the sanity of their thirst for the climbing elixor. Krakauer gives you the full story. This is great reading; you will not be bored!
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Summary: fascinating short articles about mountaineering
Review: This is my favorite of all the books I've read by Jon Krakauer; maybe because he's not trying to prove anything. It's a selection of short, non-fiction, stories about different aspects of mountaineering and the types of people that do it. Krakauer is very, very good at writing. He's funny and entrancing. This book is more about people than about mountaineering. Read it even if you're not into the sport, or if you're put off by macho posturing. It's not like that at all. The articles in the book include a description of ice-climbing; a horrifying account of a particularly murderous year on K2; various profiles of particularly interesting mountaineers; a very funny description of what to do if trapped for days in a tent in a storm; a history of glacier flying; and some of the author's personal climbing experiences, including some awkward cross-cultural encounters with French climbers.
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