Rating: 
Summary: Defying the Dangers of Altitude
Review: Jon Krakauer, an ill-fated mountaineer, wrote an amazing account of his death-defying mountaineering trek to Mount Everest in his novel, 'Into Thin Air'. This story about his miraculous survival is one of the best mountaineering novels ever written. Krakauer captivates the reader with graphic details in which the reader can almost comprehend what life is like at the altitude of the highest point on the planet. From almost the beginning of the journey, things started to go wrong. By the time he left the mountain summit, he was running out of oxygen in his oxygen tank, and his friends were dropping like flies. After the sleep-deprived Krakauer turned away from the 29,028ft. summit, the weather became devastating. Krakauer amazingly managed to climb down another 300 feet where he collapsed in his tent, but alive. Six of his fellow climbers, he learned the next morning, were desperately fighting for their lives, of which, five died by the time the storm passed. This novel is a story of how Krakauer's life-long ambition turned into a living nightmare. This well-written survival story is an excellent read for both climbers and non-climbers and is highly recommendable.
Rating: 
Summary: The Emotions on Everest
Review: Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild and Eiger Dreams, writes a casual yet informative account on his emotional climb of Mt. Everest, the "mother goddess of the earth", in the riveting story, Into Thin Air. Into This Air expresses to the reader an emotional fight, minute by minute, up the mountain through its deadly obstacles. The guides of the two major expeditions in the spring, Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, prove even through years of experience,nature is supreme and spontaneous. The book twists your emotions in having hatred for characters such as the Sherpas(the indigenous people of Tibet who went on many expeditions to help the guides) at one minute and a sense of gratitude the next minute. As well as accounting his own experience, Krakauer brings you into the other climber's emotions and allows you to form an opinion about each one of them. Into Thin Air, is also educational in the sense that you learn of the obstacles that all climbers face on mountains and you are able to have more respect for mountain climbers everywhere. It's very interesting because when Jon Krakauer actually reaches the top of Mt. Everest, he does not give himself the gratitude he deserves, because he knew the real challenge would be getting down the mountain (which is the second half of the book). Being able to see Jon Krakauer after the Everest experience, the reader has a sense of reality that this is a true story that he had to fight and is still fighting today through letters of respect and even hatred. Into Thin Air was a beautifully written account that proves the extent of human frailty and existence.
Rating:
Summary: Tragedy Strike at 29,028 Feet
Review: I found Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air to be a riveting account of the tragedy that struck Mt. Everst in 1996. Jon is a journalist and skilled mountaineer who along with seven other clients followed Rob Hall, the head guide of Adventure Consultants to the top of Mt. Everest. His detailed style makes you feel as if you are stand on the mountain with him. Throughout the novel, Krakuer relates his past experiences to things that are happening on the mountain. Krakauer includes the journey of Scott Fisher's team as well as other expeditions such as the IMAX team. Krakauer graphically describes the terrifying storm that struck and death and agony that followed. He tells of the heroic live saving measures that were taken to try and save those caught in the storm, such as when Anatoli Boukreev tried to climb up the mountain and rescue Scott Fisher in a snow storm with nearly zero visibility. In Into Thin Air Jon showed that tragedy can strike at one of the most fascinating places on earth.
Rating:
Summary: Suspenseful
Review: The author's reaccount of their experience on Everest leaves and amazing impression of danger, courage, the harshness of the elements, and survival luck. Local myth and culture worship the mountain and pray for the adventures to return. How do people act in the most harsh climate in the world? The real miracle is not submitting Everest but getting down. So expect tradegy and overconfidence to be the central theme. The Book has a very clean, honest, and high energy feel.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: This book is the best written novel I have ever read, and at twelve I have read a lot. The details are so amazing. He takes the accounts of what happened on the mountain and added a personal history to every single thing that added another world to the novel. A type of world that lets you get up close and personal with the real life people this novel is based on. Krakauer vividly describes the beauty of the mountain and the terrifying nature of it at the same time. His details allow the reader to experience things only a few hundred people in the entire world have experienced. When you are reading, you can feel the cold of the below zero temperatures running through your bones. You feel sad when a person gets left behind but you also feel sorry for the person leaving him behind. He portrays the characters in an incredible way that catches every emotion. The story of what happened is astonishing by itself, but when Krakauer adds his journalistic touch it becomes even better.
Rating: 
Summary: On the folly of mountain climbing
Review: There's no denying that Krakauer is a good writer, and that the events and people of which he writes are interesting. But the fact of the matter remains is that the "past-time" to which these people have devoted--and in some cases sacrificed--their lives is an excellent example of man's propensity to forsake reason and logic in the pursuit of illusory goals. To devote oneself to climbing mountains for the sake of thrills and notarity ultimately serves no useful purpose, and simply gratifies the ego of the climber. Sadly, the mindset of the mountain climber resembles that of the gallant soldier of yore who with nonsensical and misguided idealism would willingly shirk all concern for self for the sake of some ultimately pointless objective. Were these people to come to the rational conclusion it should not be man's place to conquer everything on this planet (and subsequently turn that which is conquered into a gigantic playground) and that one can attain much greater and sincere rewards by revering the mountain from a distance, they'd have my undying respect. But as it stands, I have no sympathy for these people whatsoever.
Rating:
Summary: When Nature Puts the Smack-Down
Review: It's easy to forget how powerful nature really is, what with all the modern technological advances. This book is a very well-put together account of what happens to people following the "What could possibly go wrong? It could never happen to me." philosophy.Krakauer provides informative insights to the people that climbed Everest that year, along with good presentation of the mountain climber culture. The Everest landscape is well crafted, and manages to capture the history and some of the society surrounding the mountain. If you liked the Perfect Storm, you should check out Into Thin Air.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant! But not perfect.
Review: An event as big as the 1996 Everest disaster is always going to be difficult to convey with any accuracy, due, as Krakauer himself says, to the inconsistencies of memory, especially when above 26,000 feet where everyone is suffering from hypoxia. That said, however, Krakauer does a masterful job of portraying his own struggles on the mountain. Furthermore, with a little conjecture based on his first-hand knowledge of the mountain and the people involved, he does make some seemingly-accurate suppositions on the whys and the wherefores of the event. The book starts really slowly. I found it a struggle to get through the first 150 pages, because we meet the people, we meet the mountain, we meet Jon Krakauer, and it seems merely to plod along. It is when the book enters its description of the May 10 summit push that it really comes into its own. While the first 150 pages feel unnecessary when you read them, once you hit the climax, you find that without those 150 pages you wouldn't know the people so intimately and thus the tragedy would not feel quite so shocking and heart-rending. The trouble with Krakauer's writing is that he appears to sit on a fence regarding opinion while in actuality he does anything but. In 'Into Thin Air', as with 'Into The Wild', he dodges making any explicit assertions, and yet in the way he writes you can sense his unspoken prejudices coming through. Not that there is anything wrong with having an opinion - Joe Simpson openly fills his books with his own prejudices - but Krakauer pretends to be objective and then by, for example, quoting somebody else giving an opinion and juxtaposing it with a description of action, reveals himself to be as opinionated as any writer. For example, after quoting somebody that it is 'irresponsible' for a guide not to use supplemental oxygen, he innocently mentions that Anatoli Boukreev declined to use supplemental oxygen. Later, because of his apparent dislike for Boukreev, he underplays that Boukreev, despite making it all the way to the summit and back, also went out into the storm to rescue three people, and on the next day climbed back up the mountain in the storm to try and rescue Scott Fischer while Krakauer was lying unconscious in his tent. Not that I am criticising Krakauer for his exhaustion - I am in no position to judge - but after vilifying Boukreev's 'poor judgement' more than once throughout the narrative, it would have been fair to then give him some credit for what amounted to a superhuman effort up on that mountain. And let's face it, if Boukreev was being 'irresponsible' because lack of oxygen weakened him, how come he did more than any other individual on that mountain? There is little evidence of his hypoxia-induced weakness, especially when one considers that a month before Boukreev was killed in an avalanche on Annapurna, he was awarded the David Sowles Memorial Award for his valour on May 10 and May 11, 1996. While Krakauer may think that Boukreev was irresponsible, the climbing world in general vehemently disagrees. In the main, this is a great if inconsistent book. It is an event that will always hold terrific sway in the minds of mountaineers and the general public alike. If you liked reading about this event, and want views that both supplement and criticise Krakauer's view, then Joe Simpson's 'Dark Shadows Falling', Matt Dickinson's 'The Death Zone', and Beck Weathers' own 'Left For Dead' are great to read alongside this book.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling
Review: Into Thin Air recounts the trials and tribulations of the many expeditions assaulting the summit of Mount Everest in the Spring of 1996, but focuses on the team led by Rob Hall. Krakauer brings a very knowledgeable background to the book as he was an avid climber even before the Everest disaster. Instead of using solely secondhand accounts to tell of the debacle, Krakauer was actually on the mountain making the summit push himself. Krakauer is able to tell of all the difficulties one can run into on the way to the summit among them, frostbite, exhaustion, wind and the thin air. Along with his own recollection of the events, Krakauer borrowed from his comrades on the mountain and even included stories told by relatives. It is a story of success, failure and heartache. In the end, even if you aren't a climber, it is well worth the read. If you like Krakauer, I would also try "Into the Wild."
Rating:
Summary: Very Well Written
Review: Krakauer does an amazing job of describing the events that lead up to and after the disaster on Everest happens. Krakauer is a journalistic writer, so do not expect a story that has been "spiced up". He put a lot of effort into making sure the story he was telling was an accurate representation of what happens. That includes interviewing several people that were on the mountain at the same time the tragedy happened. Overall this was one of the better non-fiction books I have read. It is definitely not hard to read and could be enjoyed by almost anyone. When an author is one of the main characters in a book you would expect quite a few biases; that is not the case in Into Thin Air.
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