Into Thin Air

Rating:
Summary: .......Riveting.......
Review: Into Thin Air is an enthralling adventure story deftly recaptured by author Jon Krakauer. This is the standard that I measure all other adventure books against.

Krakauer puts you right there on the mountain and gives you an incredible feel for the treacherous and hostile conditions awaiting those who attempt to summit Mt. Everest. Moreover, he gives you an acute insight into what drives these climbers to want to conquer the world's highest mountain. The desire to achieve the summit becomes an almost overwhelming obsession to many. And it is this obsession that causes critical errors in judgment and makes even the world's best climbers take chances that ultimately lead to disastrous consequences. Incredible how overwhelming and unrelenting a mountain storm can be as it descends and unleashes itself on the climbers. Equally incredible is how Krakauer takes you step-by-step up that mountain and through that ill-fated adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: Krakauer writes that Henry Bass' 1985 ascent of Everest "rudely pulled Everest into the postmodern era." Into Thin Air brilliantly describes the consequences of that change. Once the province of elite mountaineers, Everest had become an adventure destination for wealthy "clients" from around the world, some with little previous climbing experience. Into Thin Air depicts the unlikely meeting between the Starbucks and Internet culture of the 1990's and the world's highest mountain.

Krakauer's writing is surprisingly insightful and accessible to us non-climbers. It was easy for me to relate to him and care about the others he wrote about. He painted vivid pictures of the personalities involved in the 1996 ascent, such as Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, and Sandy Pittman. At the same time, he showed the great folly of attempting Everest with anything less than the utmost seriousness. Sometimes this unusual eyewitness account read like an exciting adventure story; at other times like social criticism. My impression through the last half of the book was that it was actually a trip to hell. I kept wondering how anyone could willingly subject themselves to such misery. To read it is unbelievable, unforgettable. It will have you at the edge of your seat all the way to its tragic and unsettling conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: A gripping, compelling read
Review: The book, the motive, the man, and the mountain - all have been talked about, written about, reviewed, and dissected since Into Thin Air was published. Since 1953 when Hillary/Norgay 'conquored Everest,' stories of travails and tragedies on the mountain have rivited the attention of everyone.
Into Thin Air explores a particularly harrowing and tragic attempt on the summit and reveals once again the sometimes-folly of men who would challenge Nature.
High recommendation - but wow, it's looooong...

Rating:
Summary: A fitting eulogy to those who parished...
Review: This is an amazing book about one of human kinds most daunting feats. The sheer number of people who have died climbing Everest makes one think why would you do this but I guess it is a moment that can define your life and that makes it special.

Into Thin Air brings you into the world of mountain climbing and tells the story of a tragic expedition in May of 1996. Krakauer was a magazine wirter who recieved the "privlidge" of the opportunity to climb Everest with one of the most famous expedition leaders of all time.

Krakauer does an amazing job of bringing us into the world of mountain climbing and then going through the events of his climb as he remembers them. I found it facinating learning about the history of climing Everest. Krakauer talks about the famous climbs and the feat of elusive accomplishment mecca of mountain climbing- doing the 7 summits. (Climbing the highest point on each continent) He also talks about the work, planning and finances involved with an Everest expedition and how commercialized it has become in reent years. Bad weather poor decisions and unfortunate circumstances lead to lost party members and worse as we live through climb with Krakauer. Krakauer makes everyday people into characters we know and feel for (or hate) and he is respectful and mournfull of all who passed away. (not exploitive)

This book is not just for mountain climbing fans. Krakauer can a get a bit self-righteous at times but its a minor flaw of an otherwise incredible read.

Rating:
Summary: From Dull To Exciting
Review: Into Thin Air was a book that has its moments to keep readers very interested. I would have to say that the first 200 pages or so of the book I found quite dull. For the most part, the book discussed the South African expedition along with the IMAX and any political implications that were involved. Along with this being said, the first half also spent little time describing the climb. It seemed that the book described about 100 different people from different expeditions that the reader was left wondering who is who.

However, once the book moved forward and described the climb into the ascending altitude I was really moved. First off the strenous hardships that these climbers put themselves through is unbelievable. The chance that they take to climb Everst and there is a good possibility that they may not even reach the top. Once tragedy struck Krakuer's party I did feel remorse for those who died on the expedition.

Overall, I do recommend this book but if you know nothing about mountain climbing like myself you may find some of these facts to be dull. However, the descriptions about the climb itself makes the book well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Impossible to put down!
Review: Perhaps timing is everything, but don't tell that to Jon Krakauer, an outdoors writer and mountain climber who was offered the opportunity of a lifetime to climb Mount Everest; only to find himself in the middle of the most notable catastrophe to ever strike the mountain. With the 50th anniversary of the successful assent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, there is renewed interest in Chomolungma (the Tibetan name for the mountain. Previous to the second half of the twentieth century, Everest was a forbidden monolith that crushed anyone who attempted to scale it's heights. But with it's invincibility shattered by Hillary and Norgay, Everest began to shed some of it's mystery, and bit by bit, the appearance (but just the appearance) of it's lethality. By the 90's, the primary requisite for a summit attempt was a bank account large enough to pay for an experienced guide. New problems like the litter of discarded oxygen canisters became a threat to the mountain, as the climbing ranks swelled with serious amateurs anxious to achieve various ego firsts like "first woman over 60," "first Lithuanian" to summit Everest, along with the highest mountains on each of the continents.

Outside magazine sent Krakauer on an expedition with Rob Hall, one of the most experienced of the new crop of guides, whose business it was to get climbers to the summit. Even with modern equipment and climbing techniques that's still a daunting task, not for the faint of heart or the expanded of waistline. However the professional mountaineers of Hillary's generation were being followed on Hall's expedition by a postal employee, a New York socialite and others. They were joined on the mountain by various teams, some so inexperienced as to be comical. Among the other teams was one led by Scott Fisher, another guide that was making a name for his ability to get people to the top and in a bit of braggadocio had even claimed that he had "found a golden staircase to the summit."

Krakauer outlines all of the minutia regarding preparation and execution of an Everest climb. You can almost find yourself wheezing as he describes what existence is like above the elevation that is known as the Death Zone. And he recounts in harrowing detail the storm that hit while Hall and Fisher's teams were near or below the summit, and the efforts of the others to rescue them. I had mixed feelings when I read of the final conversation between Rob Hall, as he sat helpless and dying on the mountain, and his pregnant wife back in New Zealand. Here is a man and woman exchanging their final words, both fully aware of his fate, and yet we mortals who will likely never be tested in this way are privy to his private thoughts and her quiet despair.

Moving from the role of dispassionate observer, into a deeper role of survivor, Krakauer anguishes over what he could have done differently, of the mistakes he believes he made and how he will ever reconcile his grief. Yes, he stood on the summit. Yes, he survived and returned home. But he has no satisfaction about conquering the mountain. And he questions why anyone else would even attempt it.

Rating:
Summary: Brief, a bit uneven, but worth the time.
Review: In 1996, Jon had a bad experience, diluted not at all by the fact that he shared a terrible disaster on Everest with more than a dozen other people. Some people died. Some people, maybe even Jon, wished to have died rather than live afterward. It was a terrible event.

Jon's writing about it, however, doesn't do it the justice it deserves. We know that he originally wrote it for a magazine, with a strict word budget, and this rewrite for the book has that feeling that it's been stretched; like a grade school paper, if one can use an ill-fitting analogy like that one. Upon picking up this book, I had thought that we'd be treated to a gripping, driven story about courage, sacrifice, terribly expensive decisions and their consequences afterward. Instead we've got a quarter-book of the things we want, but three-quarters of the book deals with Jon's personal regret over not being heroic enough to single-handedly rescue a dozen trapped climbers, and how, because he was nearly demented with High Altitude sickness and couldn't tell who was who, that he didn't even know who was lost.

Jon may never forget his ordeal on the mountain, but I don't think that should have been the point of this book, no matter how personal of an account it should have been. Jon's alive, and he's got a lifetime to deal with his sense of remorse and guilt, and to understand that no one on that mountain made decisions that were wrong; even if none of it was right. The only bad decision, in my opinion, was not covering the incident as much as he repeated his feelings of remorse. After my first read of this book, all I can remember is a lot of planning and apologizing; then, there's a few pages about some people that climbed, then more apologizing, and it's done.

I may be biased. I saw the fluffy yet gripping Vertical Limit movie - you know, Robin Tunney, Chris O'Donnel, etc - about climers on K2, and I found that hollywood came up with a much more interesting story, overall. I'm ashamed to admit that I found a fluffy, formulaic hollywood piece more interesting, ironically a piece probably based on the 1996 disaster in which Jon was involved.

This book is a wonderful book for climbers, especially high-altitude folks who can nod their head in wry understanding or bow it in tears for their fallen friends, but the rest of us may not get so much out of it. Get a friend, go halfers, swap after you're done with it, and discuss it together afterward.

Rating:
Summary: Best Non Fiction Book I have Ever Read
Review: I am a 13 year old boy and this book is right up there with harry potter you feel that you are right up on the mountain with Jon!

Rating:
Summary: Into extreme conditions
Review: This is the mountain adventure classic of all time. And, it is a real story.

The author takes you into another world. You have to be glad you can do this in the comfort of your living room. It beats being frozen, half delirious, and litterally running out of air.

The author describes in detail so many unforgetable characters. Tragically, most of them did not make it back.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best non-fictions I've read!
Review: This book is so well-written that I'd recommend to anybody! It is a MUST read for anybody into mountain sports. I felt transported to the mountain and suffered from nightmares for a week after reading the book. Delicious yet harrowing! It will probably be credited as saving those lives of potential "slayers" of Everest who read this book and change their minds afterwards. At least it will save some fingers, toes and noses. This is one of my favorite books of all times, as it has absorbed me into an icy realm with which I wasn't familiar beforehand, yet feel I almost know now.