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Summary: Why Climb Everest
Review: This book bears the eternal question....why do people climb this mountain?! It is a throughly engaging book. Like a train wreck, it's hard to tear your eyes away. Very well written and fast moving.
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Summary: A fascinating account of life and death at 29,000 feet.
Review: While quickly turning this book's pages in the comfort of my home, all I wonder is why anyone would, in their right mind, want to go climb Mount Everest. Krakauer does a great job capturing the misery and horrible conditions associated with the climbers' ascent and descent of the world's tallest peak. I felt as if I was reading about people trying to exist in a place where they really don't belong.
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Summary: Gripping!
Review: All I can say is that this book is gripping and fantastic. Jon does an excellent job of depicting the climb, and environment.Through the characters, the reader vicariously experiences the missery, angst, and fatigue encountered on this horrific Everest expedition.
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Summary: Unbelievable
Review: What an honest account of what happened. I wish that author wasn't so had on himself. Nobody died because of his actions or lack there of. How could he save anyone when he was struggling with his own survival. Anyway, great book. One of those books I can't stop thinking about.
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Summary: Stark, and honest, an excellent book...
Review: Ever since I was in seventh or eighth grade I have been interested in mountain climbing. There is something appealing about a sport that insists on total self-reliance. Into Thin Air is a wonderfully written book about just what can happen. In March of 1996 Jon Karkauer was set on an expedition to Mount Everest by Outside magazine. His expedition was led by the renowned climber Rob Hall. Karkauer, along with the guides, sherpas, and other clients in Hall's expedition, found out what happens when a storm comes up at 28,000 feet. Into Thin Air is a stark, horrifying, and exhilarating story about humans facing a sudden disaster they are powerless to overcome, and, in some cases, powerless to survive. This account is wonderful because it is so honest.
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Summary: Titanic in the mountains - but no 'big' literature
Review: This book describes the Titanic-tragedy - just in another setting. Capitalism and human hybris lead not to the sinking of a ship but to the death of 'hobby-climbers' (and their experienced guides) in a surrounding simply not made for hobby-climbers... The story itself is fascinating, as any great human tragedy. Unfortunate is only, that Jon Krakauer is not a really good writer. Compare Maurice Herzog's 'Annapurna' and Heinrich Harrer's 'The White Spider' with it and you may feel the incredible difference.
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Summary: Jon Krakauer does the best he can to put you on Everest
Review: Into Thin Air gives readers a first-hand look at what it was like on that fateful day in 1996. Jon Krakauer takes you on a step-by-step ascent up the world's tallest mountain, never leaving-out relevant details. Krakauer then takes his readers on a cold, horrific descent into the base camps as the size of his expedition slowly withers.His words and pace match his state of consciousness throughout his trip up and down Everest. The only downfall are some overly explained details in the beginning of the book. It picks-up quickly towards the middle. Maps in the middle of the book explain the detailed route that he explains at some length. A wonderful read!
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Summary: This book was gripping and realistic.
Review: This story was a five star story. To read of such tradgedy is sad, but we are all curious, and this is why the book has such a grip. This was not a five star book however because Krakaur athough a talented writter lacks some vital component in his prose that usually keeps a reader turning the pages. It was the fabulous story, instead of the author that did all of the work in this book.
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Summary: Read /My Vertical World/ by Jerzy Kukuczka instead
Review: /Into Thin Air/ is worth reading, but I found /My Vertical World/ by Jerzy Kukuczka to be a better tale of mountain climbing and its tragedies. (Kukuczka was the second man, after Reinhold Messner, to climb the world's fourteen 8000m mountains.)
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Summary: Riveting!
Review: I never knew I was such a fast reader! I began and finished this book traveling across Washington state one weekend. The only thing missing is about 500 hundred more detailed pages. I kept referring to the maps & pictures included in the book. Such an amazing story...I actually had to read some of the passages aloud to anyone who would listen (or to myself) just to get the full effect. This book is at the same time inspirational and infuriating. It is to Krakauer's credit that he is able to tell such a personal account and still remain somewhat objective in the process.
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