Rating: 
Summary: Questionable
Review: It seems de riguer to have a magazine writer expand his favorite disaster into a book. I think chest beating, hair tearing accounts of watching other people die under the geographically distant and convenient bubble of journalism suck.Although most people agree that this book is a very profitable damnation of adventure gone bezerk shouldn't the author and the readers be included in this rogue's gallery. Maybe Jon (who makes his money writing about Yuppie adventure) would like to donate all his profits from the book (and I would assume movie) to redirecting people's adventurous pursuits into helping people in hard places, instead of using up their precious resources, enslaving and endangering their people. This book makes money from the very thing it says it despizes. Meaningless adventure pursued by ignorant self centered people.
Rating: 
Summary: A amazing book, you won't be able to put it dowm!
Review: This was a great book. You feel like you are on the mountain.
Rating: 
Summary: An adventure you'd rather read than take
Review: This was a very interesting, compelling, fascinating and horrific book. The one thing I found missing, however, was the reson behind why people feel they need to peak Everest. I thought this the perfect opportunity for someone of this nature to explain to readers what propels men and women up this mountain even though they know the dangers. I can't wait to see the IMAX film about this expedition. An interesting angry yet detached tone throughout, adding to the haunting feeling of this book and the story it tells.
Rating:
Summary: Not just for the outdoorsman
Review: I've never climbed a mountain, and know nothing about surviving in harsh climes, but that didn't dampen my zeal for this great story. Even though I'd seen several documentaries on climbing, and specifically on Mt. Everest expeditions, I was riveted. Jon Krakauer paints a vivid picture of what it's like to live in constant danger, and the cost of underestimating Mother Nature. Anyone who thinks climbing the world's tallest mountains is somehow adventurous or romantic, or just a neat thing to experience, ought to read this book. It gave me new respect for those who make climbing a way of life, and made me equally concerned for amateurs who are paying for an experience they might not live to tell about.
Rating:
Summary: A long magazine article about stupid human climbing tricks.
Review: If this book serves any purpose it will stop people from taking the foolish risks these people did in the name of . . . um. . . I don't know. Professional guides take $25,000 to lead people to the summit of Everest where the oxygen is low, the winds high and common sense absent. What a waste of human life there is in this book. If you want to read adventure that examines the human condition try Joseph Conrad or Jack London. I recommend you spare yourself this indulgent, overgrown magazine article about supposedly intelligent people who climb to 28,000 feet and find out why there is no sign of life way up there.
Rating:
Summary: An armchair adventure that will leave you gasping for breath
Review: Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air, will leave you alternately holding your breath and gasping for air as you read his vivid account of a climb to the summit of Mt. Everest and the even more perilous descent. When he reached the summit on May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept for days, had eaten very little, and found his descent delayed as he waited for a stream of climbers who crowded the route to pass. Concerned about his decreasing supply of oxygen, he asked a fellow climber to turn his off while they waited. In a high altituded induced confusion, his partner turned the oxygen full on and in ten minutes it was gone. Vision dimmed, head reeling and feeling as though he was suffocating, Krakauer tackled the dreadful descent. He never noticed the building storm that would soon hit the mountain, taking more lives in one day than ever before in the history of Mt. Everest expeditions. This book is alternately chilling and thrilling -- a testimony to human endurance and perservance, as well as to the power of nature. You'll feel as if you've actually climed Everest when you close the covers of this "can't put down" account of Everest's deadliest season ever. I read it cover to cover in one day.
Rating:
Summary: a head check for would-be mountain climbers
Review: Read this book if you even think you want to climb a mountain. krakauer does an excellent job of putting you, cold and miserable, on a mountain top amidst a tragedy. believe all the hype, its a good book. an interesting addition to the narrative, which i have yet to decide whether i like or not, is the interjection of the author's extreme personal guilt towards the whole situation. it adds to the story by humanizing it, but doesn't seem to fit somehow. and personal opinions are tradtionally left out of works by journalists for the sake of objectivity. i listened to the audio version of this book, which i dont suggest because you will hjave a hard time keeping all of the characters straight. i also listened to it while driving and ended up with a several hundred dollar speeding ticket because i was paying more attention to the story than my 85 mile an hour speed on the turnpike. a good read.
Rating:
Summary: I give it a 7 out of 10.
Review: I knew most of the story before reading the book. I learned little that was new to me. We are just in the post-Titanic months, and we are thirsting for life-death adventure. We enjoy reading about people who see the face of death and tremble. It is definitely a catharsis for the author. It is his cleansing.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, emotional account of Everest disaster
Review: The title of this book captures a key theme of this eye-witness account of the 1996 Everest disaster that killed a dozen climbers. The desperate need for air, the danger of remaining in the Death Zone above 25,000 feet, pervade this narrative. Krakauer's telling of the after-effects of the disaster on the "survivors" is bound to strike a chord in anyone who has suffered a disaster. I came away from this mountain with a greater respect for and fear of Mount Everest.
Rating:
Summary: I Needed A Scorecard
Review: Into Thin Air put me on Everest for 2 weeks and had me living vicariously through the harrowing lives of Jon Krakauer, et al. While it was a very compelling story impossible to put down, filled with raw danger at every turn, it was not without its flaws as I look back. For instance, if he was so out of it half the time above 26,000 ft., how could Mr. Krakauer's memory serve him so well with such vivid detail? Also, while I'm sure it must have been necessary to the story to a degree, I just could not keep track of the constant parade of new characters being introduced--all the way to the last page! Most of these he would go from a first name to a last name basis with no warning. I needed a scorecard to follow who was dying, freezing, suffering from PACE or just throwing up. Page after page of misery in this book ensures the reader to thank their maker for what they have. Perhaps that was the story's most satisfying quality.
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