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Summary: Characters hard to follow and writing on first grade level
Review: This book was not bad, but it was not what I would call a classic either. The story was interesting, but everything was glossed over so quickly that by the end of the book where the author is talking about characters doing this and that, I did not know who most of them were or were they came from. The writing level of the book is amateurish at best. For those who like simple reading and a quick story this may be a good book for you. For me it was a bit of a let down and I thought the author of the book was a big part of the problem on Everest and ends up profiting from it.
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Summary: Coldest Book I've Ever Read
Review: That's it. The coldest book I've ever read. I picked it up at the urging of a friend and could not put it down until it was over. What a story.
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Summary: There is a lot of air down there
Review: This si a graet book. I had to read it for a project on nepla and Mt. Everest and thought i would not like it. bone chilling and sometimes scary, it shows you what being in the worst possible situation is on the highest point in the world. A snow storm with -100 wind chills 29,028 feet in the air with no bottled oxygen. OW! If i were you would vuy the book and read if you wnat something exiting and thrilling but sad and real. Also read Beck Weathers book. It is on the same thing and is even more amzing than this (he was supposed to die 4-5 time in the book). THIS IS GREAT!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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