Rating: 
Summary: The best book I read in 1999
Review: Even if you're not a nonfiction fan and could care less about mountainclimbing, you will love this book. In 1996 Jon Krakauer fulfilled a lifelong dream to climb Mt Everest on assignment with Outside magazine. That year a record number of people lost their lives on the mountain in a freak snowstorm. Krakauer sets the tale up as a disaster many veterans (including some of the deceased) believed was inevitable as the mountain grew both increasingly crowded and populated with many inexperienced climbers(one member of the expedition did not know how to put their ice-climbing gear on; later a line to climb the summit has deadly consequences.) This is a heartbreaking story of by turns bad luck, self-sacrifice, bad decisions, cowardice, and hubris made all the more compelling by Krakauer's wise, modest prose. Indeed, he clearly yet unfairly feels he is partly responsible for the death of one climber and goes so far as including a letter from one victim's angry sister in the epilogue of the paperback version. While I won't go so far to say this is a tale of Darwinism, this book makes a sobering statement about mankind's attempt to turn nature into a theme park with tragic results.
Rating: 
Summary: A New Classic!
Review: I have read Into Thin Air Twice now and it is just as exciting the second time around. I do not know enough about mountain climbing and what happened in May of 1996 on Everest so I can not comment on who did the right thing on the mountain. What I can comment on is that this book is great.The author was originally on Mt. Everest to see and write about organizations like Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants who for high fees would take less experienced climbers to the top of the worlds largest mountain. Tragically we see as the author does the result of a crowded mountain, inexperienced climbers,lack of oxygen, and bad weather. People can point fingers all they want at who did what. But the bottom line is that the author has written a classic. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Darwin In Action
Review: This book is an interesting expedition into the minds of people who behave stupidly in order to prove something to others or to themselves, and who reap exactly what they deserve. It's a tale about people with no regard for the feelings of their families and friends, self-centered people who drop out of life for awhile to crawl up a rock and possibly die. It's about people with too much time and money on their hands, and too little sense to use their resources constructively. It is a great book, a great story, and serves as a magnificent example of what NOT to do with your life in our world today. Best of all, hats off to Charles Darwin, it is a very clean-cut demonstration of the process of natural selection, illustrating triumphantly the manner in which pure idiocy typically, and appropriately, gets erased from the human gene pool with ruthless dispatch.
Rating:
Summary: You get a cold for reading it !
Review: This book brings you so close to the action that you can almost be able to imagine the whole picture that those adventures were passing thru. The Book gets a five stars if not by the slow introduction and pre-arangements for the climbing. The rest of it....Just amazing !
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: This book was incredible. I don't normally have the time on my hands to read, but once I started this book I could not put it down. The tactful way in which the author tells his story keeps the reader turning the pages. A good read that everyone will enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: You feel it
Review: Krakauer's account of Everset in May 1996 was great reading for three reasons, (a) He is like most of us, someone who had youthful ambitions that he grew out of through normal maturity but swept back to out of a desire for a dream (climb Everest). And he gets in over his head but in the end lives and grows through it, (b) He writes with great descriptive language of the brutal beauty and power of the mountain and the travails of climbing in the death zone. It really is a page turner!, (c) He captures the impact of commercialization of the climb and the mixed and tangled motives and actions that led to the tragic results in May 1996. This description makes a parable of the story and reminded me of the "March of Folly" by Tuchman on a smaller and more recent scale. Trouble starts small and builds into a torrent. Highly recommended for the story, the truths, and the power of Everest.
Rating:
Summary: Into thin Air
Review: Into Thin Air tells a gripping tale of the 1996 summit expeditions of Mount Everest. Krakauer gives a first person account of an expedition to the top of the world that goes horribly wrong. It will make some people question why people would ever attempt such a feat and put their lives on the line. He vividly explores the way each climber's essential character is magnified on this climb. Somehow, with many more experienced climbers with him he tells a fable of how he made it to the summit first, and with relatively little discomfort.Jon Krakauer tells his story with such an emotion that you cannot help being caught up in the mystique the mountain possesses.
Rating:
Summary: Intellectually compelling adventure story
Review: Bereft of reliable knowledge, of being able to rely on one's usual ways of knowing, and of knowing what reality actually is, how does one respond to crisis in the extreme conditions of Mt. Everest? On Mt. Everest, especially in the Death Zone, the brain is functioning at such a minimal level that the senses cannot be trusted, nor can perception of the physical world, and one is slow to respond to the stimuli of this rarified environment. Though climbers are outfitted with highly sophisticated gear, internally, Mt. Everest strips them bare. What remains is their character. Into Thin Air vividly explores the way each climber's essential character is magnified on this climb. Each choice, each deed, is mortal; we, as readers, experience each deed and its chain of consequences. Krakauer's prose is taut. His reflections are tough-minded and tender-hearted. He is uncompromising as he tries to sort out the many moments of heroism and failure that made this climb an extraordinarly complex chapter in the history of Mt. Everest expeditions. This book stimulated my mind and my adreneline: it ranks as one of the very best books I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Into Thin Air vs. The Climb
Review: I can't remember two books that stirred up so many strong feelings as "Into Thin Air" and "The Climb." To understand why, you need to read both books. Once you've read both, you'll have a better idea why certain Amazon reviewers have slandered Krakauer so viciously and unfairly. First of all, if you're going to read these books, read the new expanded "trade paperback" editions of both titles. The new versions are in a bigger, "deluxe" format that costs a little more but is definitly worth the extra money. Each of these updated 1999 editions includes the addition of a totally new epilogue that answers charges made in the other book. These added chapters are incredibly helpful if you want the real story. The 1999 edition of "Into Thin Air" takes some major digging find at Amazon (for some weird reason there is no direct link to if from the other paperback, hardback, or audio editions-they are all linked to each other, but not to this newest and best edition), but it's worth the effort. I recommend reading "The Climb" first, and then "Into Thin Air." After reading both books, I was convinced that "Into Thin Air" is definitely the more honest book. "The Climb" should certainly be read in order to get both sides of the story, but you need to keep your BS detector on full alert. G. Weston DeWalt, who ghost-wrote "The Climb" for Boukreev, uses all sorts of shameful tactics to distort the truth. Although DeWalt's prose is plodding and inept, he does have a knack for spinning the facts and pandering. He succeeds at making readers feel that Boukreev was wronged by Krakauer, when actually Krakauer did no such thing. DeWalt's attacks on Krakauer may convince the gullible, but careful, intelligent readers will be able to discern who is being honest and who is not.
Rating: 
Summary: The Krakauer Disaster
Review: I have to admit that I was rather frustrated with this book. Krakauer actually shows how thin hir report of the 1996 Everest desaster is. Nothing against his points of view but this book contaisn too much the word "I". I did this, I did that... Not to mention that Anatoli Boukreev's heroism is totally overlooked. Nonetheless this is a book worth reading. However, if you are interested in the persue of what really happened above 29,000 feet on the Everest summit, please don't stop at this book. Read also "The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest" by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston Dewalt. I would personaly start with the Boukreev account.
|
