Rating: 
Summary: Beck was emotionally dead long before Everest
Review: I believe that I am one of the few who actually enjoyed this book. I started reading with low expectations. I had seen Dr. Weathers speak.He is an engaging person, but after listening to Dr. Weathers, I knew his book would not be a another version of INTO THIN AIR, John Krakauer's tale of the 1996 Everest disaster. However, I like the book's format. I wanted to hear his family's and friend's input. This story is about physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. Dr. Weathers was a very self-absorbed man. He abused his body in preparation for the climbs besides abusing himself during all the climbs. None of the climbs were magical or wonderful but a case study in surviving under the most brutal conditions. Dr. Weathers emotionally abused his family by being an absentee husband and father. He emotionally abused himself by not seeking help for his severe depression. He psychologically abused his wife by ignoring her and leading a seperate exstence within their own home. How his family survived and stayed together is truly the miracle. The book does not to attempt to find all the answers to Dr. Weather's troubles. In fact, I would like to know the financial costs for all his expeditions to climb the highest peaks. He never discusses them. His partners probably would not given enough credit. How was Dr. Weathers able to take so much time off from work? He was gone for 4-5 weeks several times. Most of us employed or in my case, self-employed, can not accomplish this feat.
Rating:
Summary: The Psychology of a Climber
Review: This is not a typical mountaineering book. If you are looking for detailed descriptions about Camp 4 or the Hillary Step, this is not the book for you. It also does not devote a lot of space to Beck Weathers' Everest climb in 1996 and his opinions on what went wrong. The Krakauer and Breshears books are better if you want a more adventure and climb oriented perspective. However, if you are interested in the psychology of a driven, focused, destructive personality, the book is fascinating. It is an excellent biography of this man's struggles.The major theme of the book is Beck Weathers' personality and how he wrestles with depression and being extremely goal-oriented, and how this personality nearly drives him to death. It also discusses the carnage he inflicts on his family as he relentlessly follows his passions. The book contains many first-person points of view with some of the most interesting be those of his wife Peach as she deals with Beck's behaviors, tries to run a family, and hang together as Beck travels the world. The writing is quite lively and there is very little filtering on the language as Beck's comments are often contradicted by the people around him. On the other hand, some of the conversations are not so poignant, and you feel as if some of words have been lifted too directly from the family interviews. Beck's personality is very interesting to me because he reminds me of a modern Fitzcarraldo, and his choices raise many questions in my mind. Is he a madman for pursuing his dreams? Did his dream save him from suicide? How could he have expected his family to shoulder his burden? Will Beck pick up some other all-encompassing passion? Has he really changed? As I turned the pages, each anecdote seemed to provide some clue in the answers to these questions. The book concludes too quickly to have any sort of definite conclusion about these questions. I still get the feeling that Beck and Peach have many issues to resolve. The family still seems to need more time to work the animosities out. And I get the feeling that Beck feels quite comfortable with the risks he took and the outcome. Fascinating that he can lose his nose and fingers and still focus positively on the insight he gained. And his personalty and his struggles are what makes the book interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: High Expectations, Low Returns
Review: The subtitle is "My Journey Home From Everest" which should actually be the title. By page 99 out of page 340, Mr. Weathers is out of the mountains trying to cope with being back in civilization after going through lleh. I didn't read the subtitle when I was buying the book and was expecting most of the book to be about his time on Everest. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. By page 160 when he is battling with his psychological demons, a problematic family life, etc., it was time for me to put the book down and move on to other books. While he was successful with most of his battles and no doubt is inspiring, he uses his Mount Everest experience to springboard into his personal spiritual battle. If you want to read this book, read it as a spiritual conquest by someone who happens to climb mountains. Do not read this book as a mountaineering book. I have listened to a speech that Mr. Weathers gave to the American Bar Association and think the world of him and what he went through on the mountain. Unfortunately I think very little of his book here. :-(
Rating: 
Summary: THE REAL EXPERIENCE
Review: To date, the books about the 1996 tragedy on Everest have told this story from the perspective of other climbers. At last, Beck Weathers tells us what happened to him as HE remembers it. If you've read other books on this subject and thought that anyone who does this sort of climbing must be a bit crazy, this book is for you. With the perspective of time, pain, and recovery, he analyzes his own reasons for climbing high and shares very personally what this addiction did to his personal life. I developed a keen interest in this story because our daughter has worked with Beck's brother at Medical City Dallas for many years. She filled us in on Beck's progress through recovery and reconstructive surgery. Also, we lost a friend on K2 about the same time. Wanting to understand what drives a person to expend the money and energy to make so dangerous a climb and to go where a human cannot exist, I began to read every book I could find about this subject. Now I've conquered Everest seven times-vicariously! However, Beck Weathers descriptions of the geographical features and meteorological quirks of the mountain refined my mental pictures. His experience is a miracle, and it will convince you that the human spirit can rise above most anything! Happy reading!
Rating: 
Summary: LEFT FOR DEAD...LUCKY TO BE ALIVE...LUCKY TO BE READ
Review: This book has a great title, as it sums up Beck Weathers' Mt. Everest experience.Unfortunately, this is the only great thing about this book. It is, at best, a mildly interesting book. The only truly interesting part is his recollection of the Everest trip and its immediate aftermath. His survival, which is truly amazing, is almost glossed over and turned into a sad soap opera about a marriage gone stale with time. It does seem that Beck's patient wife, Peach, had been ill treated in the sense that he would go off to do some amateur mountain climbing (with the emphasis on amateur), leaving her with the kids for weeks at a time and remaining incommunicado. Since her voice is interspersed throughout this book, you can see why he might want to get away. A more insipid voice, I can't imagine. She is what is bad about this book. Yet, at the same time it was her efforts, along with those of her friends, which were the catalyst for the herculean helicopter rescue by Colonel Madan K.C. who brought Beck down from the mountain. Still, she is an utter bore. What is good about the book is Beck's sense of humor and his indomitable spirit, which is undoubtedly what kept him alive in unbelievably harsh conditions on Everest. Though it is those like him who, financially able to go on these expeditions but lacking the technical skill to effectively navigate the harsh terrain, put themselves and others at risk. While it is clear that he was delighted to be rubbing shoulders with the mountaineering elite on Everest, it did not seem to dawn on him that he was just another foolhardy dilettante who, though having had some climbing experience, simply did not belong on Everest. It is this hubris which brought him to this pass. Quite frankly, given his description of his mountaineering efforts on some of the world's other tall peaks, it is a miracle he was not left for dead long before Everest.
Rating:
Summary: Not much of an Everest book
Review: I read this book and was severely disappointed in the story. I've read a lot of the accounts from the 1996 tragedy and Beck Weathers story was particularly fascinating. I truly expected someone who came back to life to really have something good to say, lessons learned, but that was not what I got out of the book. He does not seem contrite that he left his family alone most of the time for years for his climbing pursuits, comes back half dead needing them desperately. The book makes me think he'd do it over again and did not learn much from his ordeal. His wife seems extremely bitter (probably not unjustified).
Rating:
Summary: High Expectations, Low Returns
Review: The subtitle is "My Journey Home From Everest" which should actually be the title. By page 99 out of page 340, Mr. Weathers is out of the mountains trying to cope with being back in civilization after going through lleh. I didn't read the subtitle when I was buying the book and was expecting most of the book to be about his time on Everest. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. By page 160 when he is battling with his psychological demons, a problematic family life, etc., it was time for me to put the book down and move on to other books. While he was successful with most of his battles and no doubt is inspiring, he uses his Mount Everest experience to springboard into his personal spiritual battle. If you want to read this book, read it as a spiritual conquest by someone who happens to climb mountains. Do not read this book as a mountaineering book. I have listened to a speech that Mr. Weathers gave to the American Bar Association and think the world of him and what he went through on the mountain. Unfortunately I think very little of his book here. :-(
Rating:
Summary: expected more
Review: Somehow, Beck Weathers managed to write a book about the tragic climb and descent and death and coming back to life atop Everest totally boring. Enjoyed Beck and Peach's chapters on their cats more than anything.
Rating:
Summary: The adventure and the recovery
Review: When reading other books about the May 1996 tragedy on Mount Everest I got more interested in the man who was declared dead, but then miraceously escaped the maountain. So I was really happy to find this book. The first part of this book tells the story from his own perspective. The second part of the book is more about his life in general and the recovery. The book is definitely worth reading, but after such a thrilling opening the second half gets a bit of a transportation to the end.
Rating:
Summary: After Into Thin Air, this is a MUST READ
Review: If you haven't yet read Into Thin Air, do it before reading this book; it'll help put the necessary perspective to Dr. Weathers' incredible survival tale. And could there possibly be a better title than he has chosen? No other words adequately describe his situation when the other climbers, struggling themselves to survive against terrible odds, found him, determined he was dead, made it down to shelter, and told everyone else that Beck Weathers had died. Indeed, nine climbers did die, but Beck Weather was not among them. After spending 18 hrs in exposed sub-zero conditions, he miraculously regained consciousness, stood up, and walked into camp. Horribly damaged both physically and mentally by the experience, Dr. Weathers was urged and supported throughout his long and painful recovery by his wife, from whom he was estranged at the time of the 1996 expedition.
In this deeply personal story of estrangement and redemption, Beck Weathers tells a terrific tale that further fleshes out Krakauer's book
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