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Summary: Exciting Read
Review: I found "Into Thin Air" to be a completely enjoyable and enlightening book. Mountain climbing is not a topic that ever interested me, so if a friend had not recommended this book to me, I never would have read it.Like so many others, I found myself completely into this book once I started reading. The characters, the circumstances, and the predicaments all become very real. The author tells a story of actual people facing life and death situations, and the decisions they make are the difference between living and dying.
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Summary: Just read it!
Review: This was a very well-written book. I wouldn't advise Jon Krakauer to write a novel, because his voice is fairly dull and he does not seem like the type of man that you would have fun hanging out with. The subject of the book, however, easily overpowers his semi-weak voice. It is very exciting and hard to put down once you get into it about 50 pages. It was also sometimes emotionally difficult for me to read because it was so horrible and realistic. The story seems like something somebody might have made up if I didn't remember when the Everest disasters took place in 1996. This would make a very good movie and I would suggest it to anybody who likes a lot of adventure.
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Summary: Starts Slow, But Hang In There
Review: This book starts off rather slowly, with an almost 200 page introduction to the climbers and the peril of climbing Mount Everest. Then the book takes off and becomes a compelling and electrifiying account of a storm that takes the life of 11 people and leaves more permanently scarred, if not on the outside, then on the inside. Once the storm starts, it is absolutely amazing reading. Just hang in there through the somewhat long intro, and you will enjoy what follows.
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Summary: Don't mistake Krakauer's opinions for fact
Review: This is an enthralling book, I couldn't put it down. I did not have much interest in mountaineering (either doing or reading about) but since reading Into Thin Air I have read every other book I could find about the deaths on Everest in '96. The difference in perspectives from the different authors is amazing. If you are reading Into Thin Air you should remember that Krakauer has not written objectively, he is telling his own story. His opinions reflect badly on Anatoli Boukreev, who was a guide on Scott Fischer's expidition. The impression I was left with after reading books by Boukreev, Michael Groom and Lene Gammelgaard (probably spelt wrong there) was that if there was a hero on Everest in 1996 it was Anatoli Boukreev
Rating: 
Summary: Riveting!! A Great Read Even If You're Not a Mountaineer!
Review: A great yet tragic story, made all the more riveting by the fact that it is true. Hollywood writers could not come up with anything more compelling. Even for those of us that are not into mountain climbing, the book offers a look into the people's minds who pursue such ventures. It also raises the question of whether someone should have extensive experience to climb, or that the only qualification to undertake an assault on Everest should be a fat wallet. Krakauer pulls no punches in his opinions of others on the mountain that fateful trip.
Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: This book was so descriptive I was cold everytime I sat down to read it. I think Jon was very one sided on his opinions on the actions of others during this tragedy and harsh in his judgements however he is amazingly descriptive on what they went through up there. I read this book getting ready for a marathon--it didn't seem hard after comparing it to Everest.
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Summary: Gripping! Spend the extra $$ and buy the illustrated version
Review: Everyone reviewing this book has nailed it -- this is the most gripping, harrowing true story you'll ever read and it's a definite buy. The only thing I'd like to add is to say that if you can afford the extra cash for the hardcover illustrated edition, GO FOR IT. (white cover, 40 bucks versus 8 for the paperback) The illustrated edition contains over 250 photos, as compared to approx. 20 for the paperback. In addition to breathtaking landscape shots, the illustrated edition contains many intimate snapshots of the expedition team eating, conversing, climbing, etc. It makes whole account that much more personal. I read the paperback version in 2 or 3 sittings -- I'm definitely not a habitual reader, it's just that compelling -- and I just received the illustrated version as a gift. Of course I'm rereading the book just to give the new photos some context! That's my 2 cents.
Rating:
Summary: Into Thin Air
Review: I was recently on my way to California where I was to race a Porsche in a 12 Hour Endurance race. I picked up a copy of the book at one of those airport bookstores. On the airplane I started the book and could not put the thing down. Krakauer brings into focus the unbelievable conditions on Everest and the human sacrifice that goes into such and endeavour. I could only imagine what it must be like to be so alone and self dependent in such extreme conditions. A masterful recounting of an actual event and the emotions that are experienced. WOW! I was so impressed I enrolled in a mountain climbing school. I want to experience just a part of what surely must be one of the more unique experiences of ones life. After reading this book it makes racing cars seem pretty mundane.
Rating:
Summary: real and raw
Review: I am not a mountain person. I am from the flat land and never understood why people voluntarily venture above 26000 ft to catch lung oedemas and brain swelling at best. I had no pity for Beck Wheaters who was left for dead twice by his mountaineering friends and who recently told his story in a book, on TV and every major newspaper of the country. To a certain degree I also don't understand some of Krakauer's own motivations. All of that said, I still believe that his account of the 1996 Everest desaster is an excellent book and a must-read. He delivers insights into the extreme-climbers psyche and answered a lot of questions about the sport (if one can call it that way) I have had for years. Krakauer is an OK, but not outstanding writer, yet his tale is so harrowing and stunning at the same time that the book becomes a typical all-nighter. Some of the characters evoked extreme anger and disbelief in me, only few come across as sympathetic. Krakauer does not pretend to be unbiased about the whole tragic affair and he makes that clear several times in the book. In light of that the harsh criticism he received, especially from friends and family of some of the lost climbers, appear understandable but too strong. Considering what the author himself went through in the thin air, his detailed memory and overall balanced account of the events of 1996 are amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakaur is a book that anyone can read and walk away having learned something. This was a book that I was not planning to read at first, not being too much of the reading type. Then I found myself flipping through it and ended up reading the book. This was one of the first books that I could not wait to see what would happen next. I always had known the dangers of mountain climbing, but before this book I had never know to the full extent what a mountain can do to a person. From reading this book I learned why people go off risking life and limb to climb a mountain and what happens once on the mountain. As I was reading, I learned that above 25,000 feet was called the death zone, and thought that I would be encouraged it I had known that climbing the mountain. But also from reading from climbing too fast fluid can fill your lungs and you would suffocate in your own body. You would also need or heavily depend on bottled oxygen in order to know what you were doing at such high altitudes. Choices made by the climbers also shocked me as I was reading, for what one person did could get their whole expedition killed. Other things that crossed my mind while reading this was why would someone hold down two jobs to experience the exhaustion, oxygen deprivation, and torture themselves to get to as high as they were on flying to Everest. Jon Krakaur explains all of this in and throughout his novel of his first person account of the deadliest expedition in history. In this book, Jon Krakaur takes you each step of the journey, so you know how he felt all the way to the summit and back. He explains all the details of wheat went horribly wrong that day on Everest and how the lives could have been saved. Within all the story of death, a story of determination comes out with one climber not willing to give into death after being abandoned twice. Jon Krakaur come back with a story that everyone should know and think about.
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