I saw the Frontline documentary "Storm over Everest" by David Brashears which features interviews with several of the individuals mentioned in the book. You definitely get two different perspectives when watching the documentary and reading this book, but both accounts are riveting. I found myself pulling for the characters throughout the book, and I was exhausted when I finished.

Into Thin Air, the second of Krakauer's self-described three books to date on fringe elements of society, is about the mountaineering tragedy on Mt. Everest in May, 1996. He was with one of the teams on the mountain at the time for an article he was writing for Outside magazine.

In general, the story is about people who, for reasons known only to them, subject themselves to very extreme, sometimes-not-survivable weather and altitude conditions in the interets of having "climbed" the mountain (many truly climb, some of whom are able to summit; some pay significant amounts of money for what can perhaps best be called "taken," sometimes to the peak). More specifically, the book is about the numerous teams on the mountain at the time and the extraordinary difficulties encountered, some due to the limited training of paying customers, many due to the sheer number of people trying to get up and back down within the same period, all exacerbated by the weather conditions. A very tragic story ... several talented, courageous climbers died in the process and others had life-altering injuries.

Many books have been written on the events (Boukreev, Breashears, Viesturs, and others), but to my knowledge this was the first. It is well-written and, in many ways, reads like you would expect - by a talented professional writer who witnessed a truly devastating situation first-hand and who, at the time, wasn't anywhere near "over it." Highly recommended, whether or not you have any interest in mountain climbing.

This book is a true story. As such, it is amazing that men and women still will try to climb this mountain to the peak. Dangerous conditions come from everywhere, lack of oxygen, weather, and the mountain itself. Plus I must mention the climbers, some of which, are not prepared for this ascent. Have some tissues handy.
This book is well written. It tells a story of triump and tragedy and of human error and its consequences. You must read it for yourself.
GREAT SUMMER READ, or anytime.

I'm not a big non-fiction adventure book aficianado, but this book was wonderful. Jon Krakauer is the type of author who can make you feel what he's feeling and see what he's seeing without being overly verbose. I felt the epilogue was especially poignant.

Like many other one star reviewers here, I read Into Thin Air first and found the story quite compelling. After reading The Climb and Above the Clouds, its clear Into Thin Air was hastily written and poorly researched. I also question Outside magazine's journalism in the original article as its easy to question the fact checking involved in that article.

Don't spend your money on Krakauer.

I read this after seeing the PBS doc Storm Over Everest, and found it quite an interesting adjunct. I note that all the one-star reviews here say read Boukreev's book and see what a liar Krakauer is, but I doubt it's that cut and dried. I don't see that he's as egocentric here as many say, nor that he is as noble. He seems a little of both to me, ie a human being.
In any case, the book reads well, though it's no great piece of literature, just a solid, somewhat overlong narrative of a fascinating and tragic event.
Sandy Pittman must be thoroughly ashamed of herself if half of this is true; she tried to buy her way to the top while getting sherpas to carry her espresso machine and satellite dishes, and good people died as a result. The Taiwanese climbers seem equally egocentric and uncaring for others. Then again, the guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer may be equally to blame for encouraging people who weren't ready to make the climb, just so the guides could make more money and get more recognition.
Looks pretty much like the Mother Goddess spanked them all damn hard, and in some ways this reads like a straight-up Shakespearean tragedy, with all the hubris and drama that entails.
Worth reading.
I'm looking forward to reading Boukreev's book, but I think in the end there'll be three sides to this story...

I just read this book while on vacation in Mexico for a week. Talk about gripping! Each successive camp takes you higher and higher, as the suspense builds. You really get a feel for the determination and ultimate tragedy that drove and still drives people to climb Everest. Some people take issue with Krakauer, but you should give it a read and decide for yourself. PBS recently ran a two hour documentary on this trip that was simply breathtaking!! GREAT BOOK!

Personally, Jon Krakauer is my all time, hands down favorite author. I am an adventure junkie. This was the second book i ever picked up of his and i seriously could not put it down. I am in college, normally college students have tons of other things to do than read, but i put things off just so i could read this book. I LOVE IT! If you are an adventurist, adrenaline junkie, a climber, a camper, a hiker... read it...

This story is a page turner which I read in a single night. It's the gripping tale, told in a powerful way of how too many climbers and competing agendas led to a major disaster on Mt. Everest. I saw the story as one of power and control run amuck leading to the loss of too many lives. Of one man who sat down to die, and of another who refused to die even when left for dead three times. The story takes many twists and turns and involves dozens of key characters, so it would be hard to read over too long a period of time since there are a lot of details to track. Never the less, it's a great adventure story that illustrates the dangers of miscommunication at the top of the world.

Krakauer doubtlessly is a great story-teller who can keep you engrossed in every detail he delivers at each turn of the story. My only complaint is that he sprinkles difficult vocabulary not only without any added effect, but clunkily, making certain words stand out from the rest of his prose. Take, for example, the following sentence:

"Now, four days later, Nukita warned us that a similarly PREDACIOUS swarm of print and television reporters lay in wait for us..." (280, emphasis added)

Um... why not just "predatory"? Is it just me, or is the word "predacious" as common a word as "predatory"?

Or take another sentence:

"But such moments were tempered by the long PENUMBRA cast by Everest..." (282, emphasis added)

Again, why not infinitely more understandable and easy-to-imagine "SHADOW"? Why "PENUMBRA"? Why go so poetic and abstract all of a sudden? I was literally thrown off balance when I came across the word in midsentence because it's so out of place. Besides, it hazards leaving the reader wondering what the word means rather than sympathizing with the author's plight. My complaint is based on the fairly commonsensical belief that when a word is not adding anything - whether it be impact, image, style, etc. - it should be ruthlessly cut and/or replaced with another. PENUMBRA seems to fall pat into this sort of instance. Unfortunately, I didn't keep detailed note of every instance in which the author slipped in flashy words tragically to the detriment of his own otherwise lucid prose, I can't say for certain how often he did it, but as far as i remember, there were numerous similar occasions where I thought the word he chose was definitely working against his writing.

But my quibbling ends here and I only have kudos for the book. It's an awesome adventure story about people with astounding willpower under the worst and extremest of environmental conditions imaginable. Highly recommended.

As with his other ode to ego versus nature, "Into the Wild", Mr. Krakauer makes it clear with "Into Thin Air" that nature is best seen as a test bed for the elite and ego inflamed to examine their will and inner mettle or, um, die. As a result "Into Thin Air" leaves the old school of respectable and fearful examination of man living WITH nature (see the books of Ernest Seton among many others as an example) into a new school of nature writing dedicated to exploring the various ways a man or woman must overcome nature or perish in the attempt. Which, let's face it, is just plain silly. There is very little to recommend in this viewpoint, it is narcissistic and sophomoric and ultimately degrading to both nature and man; so goes the book, and for that matter, so goes the Nepal Everest base camp, which has become, at my last visit, an open dump/sewer.

If you really must read about the dangers of Mt. Everest, you are much, much better off reading "Mountain without Mercy" by B. Coburn, T. Cahill and D. Breashers. Better yet, pick up the book In Highest Nepal; Our Life Among the Sherpas by Norman Hardie. Norman doesn't conquer Mt. Everest or even care to, in fact he never even attempts the summit. Instead he lives among the Sherpa and discovers the various means they've discovered to live with the most extreme that nature has to offer. Which, in my view, is what nature writing should be about.

When I was very young, I believed my purpose in life was to climb Mount Everest. I was fascinated by the idea of hiking through the snow and eventually reaching the highest piece of land on earth. Walking to school, I would imagine myself climbing the mountain. Every road I crossed was a vast crevasse, thousands of feet deep. But, like most childhood dreams, I eventually grew out of it. So, Recently when I saw a book captioned: "The Mount Everest Disaster," the old ashes were rekindled and I naturally had to read it.

Into Thin Air is Jon Krakauer's recollection of the "Mount Everest Disaster," as the cover phrases it. He gives background information of every climber on his team as well as general facts about Mount Everest and climbing itself. Krakauer's style is excellent, and afterwards it feels as if you were there on the mountain beside him.

The book was a little slow at the beginning, unfortunately. Maybe it was the fact that none of the names meant anything to me, or the fact that everything is described in great detail, sometimes seeming very long and drawn out. Eventually I got used to it, and it ultimately was necessary for understanding all of the character's actions later on. One great aspect of the book is that Krakauer names who died right off the bat. Not only did that make me immediately interested, but it also became nerve wracking later in the book, knowing which characters were destined to never return home.

Krakauer is a born storyteller. Most storytellers do just that. They tell stories. But unlike most storytellers, Krakauer had his own story to tell. It was a life-changing story at that. Many authors could have barely made up such a great tale out of thin air, but this actually happened. That is the most haunting fact of the story, it is true.

Regardless if you like climbing, hiking, or snow, this is a great book. Even if reading isn't enjoyable, this book is. In short, this is the best book I have read in a very long time.

I read Into Thin Air in school. After hearing from many other students, I wasn't really looking forward to reading this book. After getting into the story, I changed my mind.
The story starts off somewhat slow, as they are not on the mountain yet, but picks up after the 7th chapter. It is one of those books that you want to read straight through. It always leaves you on the edge, wanting to read more. This book is about the true but sad story of climbers from everest expeditions. They summited at a bad time and got caught in a horrible storm, leaving many climbers behind. I don't know if this book is completely accurate, as it has been challenged many times but no one knows what happened that year for sure.

In spite of many reviews of this book which suggest that Mr. Krakauer's account of this Everest expedition is self-serving and overly critical of Anatoli Boukreev, I found it to be a moving and unbiased narrative of an event which has obviously devastated the author and left him wracked with guilt.

Into Thin Air is a riveting and exceptional account of the 1996 Everest disaster that left many brave people -- tourists and guides -- dead. If the author, Jon Krakauer, did not try and identify the factors which led to this tragic end, we as readers would be sorely disappointed with the book. Clearly, we want to know what happened and what went wrong. Krakauer tries to describe the events as he remembers them, and he has called upon many of his companions in this nightmare to share their memories as well.

He does not point fingers, and this is an important point for me. An event of this magnitude was too complicated to have a single cause, and no one person or action could be solely responsible. I realize that the relatives (and fans) of Hall, Fischer, and Boukreev don't want to hear about mistakes they might have made, and yet I always found Krakauer to be fair in his observations. Hall's death is tragic, and I cried while reading about it. But still, Hall did not follow his own guidelines that day, and Krakauer explores the reasons he might have acted against his better judgment.

And yes, Boukreev was a hero who single-handedly saved several people -- but his actions earlier in the day had their small part in the impending disaster. Some other reviewers carry on as if Krakauer has identified Boukreev's decision to climb without oxygen as the sole cause of the disaster. He never says that. It's just one detail in a web of causalities.

Krakauer does not spare himself. He makes it clear that he was in a state of collapse in his tent, asleep, while Boukreev was heroically staging a rescue attempt. And he is very, very clear about the role he played in the death of Andy Harris. I think Mr. Krakauer will take that guilt with him to the grave.

This is a moving, well-written, and (in my opinion) realistic and unbiased account. I found it to be unforgettable.

Anyone who wants to climb Mount Everest after reading this book is raving mad.

Jon Krakauer's storytelling is amazing. You feel as if you are on Everest with him (and with the condemned on that fateful climb): you feel the numbing cold and lack of oxygen; you are maddened by the ignorance of inexperienced climbers; you can't take another minute of the physical exertion and are desperate for rest.

Krakauer makes you really care about the people who are injured or killed. He is painfully honest and obsessed with accuracy, but it's far from boring; the book reads like a thriller.

While this book makes for a very compelling reading, it raises several questions about the accuracy of the story as told by Krakauer. Krakaeur consistently downplays and denigrates Boukreev's heroics and experiences of climbing without use of bottled oxygen. In the meantime, Krakaeur opens the book by describing how on the way down from the summit, he asked a fellow climb to shut off the oxygen during a traffic jam, only to find that the fellow climber accidentally turned up the valve. According to Krakaeur, this unplanned use of oxygen left him even more groggy and Krakaeur implies that the fellow climber's error contributed his near "comatose" state once he got down. (and why he did not join in on rescue)

Anatoli Boukreev's Climb should be read alongside the book.

No matter what the reason, when beckoned to assist other climbers, Krakauer did not do so. Boukreev did assist. Heroically.

You then decide, whose story is more accurate, and closer to the truth.

While this book makes for a very compelling reading, it raises several questions about the accuracy of the story as told by Krakauer.

Anatoli Boukreev's Climb should be read alongside the book.

When beckoned to assist other climbers, Krakauer did not do so. Boukreev did assist.

You then decide, whose story is more accurate, and closer to the truth.

I recently became obsessed with reading about Everest and this book has been by far the best I have read. Jon Krakauer is a fantastic author and has put together arguably the best account of the tradgedy of 1996.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster I never dreamed of climbing Mt. Everest whether it was there or not, hell I get winded on the ski lift. Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air evokes intoxicating wonder in the endeavor, while tempering it with the stark reality of deadly conditions and daunting sacrifice.

Krakauer writes in a way that is so pain-stakingly specific to the subject, yet somehow he leaves room for the reader's imagination to fill in the scene. A rudimentary map in the prologue pages colored by about a dozen black and white glossies mid-way through the book were all I needed to paint an intimate picture of the 1996 Mt. Everest Disaster.

I'd never put much thought into what it would take to do something as monumental as climbing Mount Everest. Logistics aside, preparing oneself for such a quixotic adventure must include long hours staring into the mirror. I was captivated by the soul cleansing effect of pushing one's mind and body so far beyond the boundaries of safety and sanity. Krakauer's story enlightens this aspect as only someone writing from real experience can. The reality and tragedy of these events only begin in the text. The full force of the story gripped me far beyond words.

Shivering through pre-dawn walks to the subway in Brooklyn while reading Into Thin Air, I tried to picture myself trudging across the frozen waste of the Western Cwm with a trusty Sherpa by my side. Fifty below zero, sixty mile per hour wind gusts, hundred foot crevasses, thirty percent oxygen levels, sheesh, count me out, I'll wait for the DVD.

Now, I don't want to turn my blog into a book review site (how friggin' boring would that be?), but I love this guy! Into Thin Air is recommended reading.

Vinny

This is an amazing story of an unimaginable nightmare that happened on Mt Everest. Even though I have no mountaineering experience or even much interest, I read this book in just a few days. The story is haunting and Krakauer does an amazing job retelling what happened on that fateful expedition.

Jon Krakauer is a great storyteller. I literally could not put this book down, reading it cover to cover in one day. Most books can't hold my attention for more than 50-60 pages at a time, but I was simply so engrossed in this story and the vivid imagery Krakauer painted with his words that I simply couldn't stop reading it.

The reader gets a palpable sense of what the expedition teams members suffered through. The extreme miseries of cold, exhaustion, and oxygen deprivation. The book consistently portrays the dangers of the low oxygen environment. The worst of these are pulmonary and cerebral edema, which can both cause death unless the climber is brought to a lower altitude. But probably the most deadly effects of the thin air is hypoxia, the under-saturation of oxygen in the blood. Although not directly life-threatening, it can cause confusion, disorientation, and hallucinations. In an already dangerous environment, having less the full faculties is a deadly hindrance. Krakauer recounts many incidents where team members, due to hypoxia, failed to put on their harnesses correctly, neglected to put on their gloves to protect their hands from the below freezing temperatures, or gave team members incorrect information in their confused state that could have proven deadly.

Also palpable is the overwhelming drive and determination to reach the summit that ultimately cost some their lives. And the agonizing, heart-breaking dilemma that comes when deciding when a team member can't go on and can't be rescued. When do you leave them for dead? But there are moments of inspiration even in those stories. Take Beck Weathers, a forty-nine year old Texan left for dead, not once but twice. His will to live defied all odds. After being left buried overnight in the snow, Weathers was found barely alive by teammates the next day. They determined he was beyond saving and left him to let nature take it's course. But hours later, he roused himself up and managed to walk back to camp. Even then, his condition was so poor he was not expected to live and was left back at camp in favor of getting more viable members down the mountain. Defying the odds, he descended to base camp with the aid of another expedition crew and was flown back to a hospital in Kathmandu.

Then comes the ultimate question, how can an expedition led by an experienced and talented climbing guide like Rob Hall go so wrong? In a nutshell, Hall made an exception to his own guidelines in an apparent sympathetic attempt to see one team member make the summit after failing to do so the year before. It left the expedition to descend far later than Hall knew they should have. It cost eight people their lives, including Hall himself.

In reading this book, you really get a sense of who all the team members are. Krakauer writes with great clarity and empathy. He has a very readable narrative style. This is one book I'll be recommending often.

This truly is a beautiful book, with a lot of good pictures, and is a good read for anyone who is in love with the tallest mountain in the world.

I loved this book and finished it in about 2 days. I'm now watching the Discovery series on Everest also. Krakauer is a superb writer with a gift for blending drama, narrative and fact-telling in a stylish manner. [...]
Highly recommended.

I found this book extremely intriguing it keeps on the edge all through it. The author in the end addresses some of what has been seen by others as weak points. I think this is the best adventure book I have read.

In May 1996, mountaineer and author, Jon Krakauer, is commissioned by "Outside" magazine to join a commercially led endeavor to the summit of Mt. Everest. In typical riveting Krakauer fashion, this true story chronicles the struggles between the two most ravenous forces on earth; mother nature and human nature. At the core of this harrowing tale is man's relentless desire to succeed. Everest emerges as the classic metaphor to an underlying current of avarice.

Seeking publicity, Scott Fischer, owner of Mountain Madness Expeditions; solicits Krakauer as a reporter for Outside to join his team of clients to the summit. Outside, however, finds a better deal with Fischer's competition, Adventure Consultants; led by Rob Hall. Both teams attempt their assault on the summit with a deadly storm brewing on the horizon and a stew of professional jealousy simmering on the fire. As mother nature ponders her assault in the troposphere and a mountain of publicity on the line, both Hall and Fischer are under pressure to get their clients to the top; Fischer more so if Hall fails. Their rivalry results in both men relaxing their own critical safety rules, resulting in the worst single season death toll in Everest history.

There are a few tear jerking moments, including one man's resolve to survive against the most devastating odds imaginable.

For those who seek high adventure from the comfort of an easy chair at sea level, Into Thin Air will not let you down.

Into Thin Air is the account by Jon Krakauer, a reporter working for Outside Magazine, chronicling a climb on Mt. Everest. Krakauer, who was originally slated to climb with a group called Mountain Madness, based in Seattle and directed with Scott Fischer, was then switched to a group called Adventure Consultants, based in New Zealand and directed by Rob Hall. This book is a blow by blow account of the approach, climb, and disaster that occurred on the summit day, leading to the deaths of Fischer, Hall, as well as four other people. While Fischer and Hall were quite accomplished climbers, and experienced with Everest, major decision errors, and arrogance, led to the catastrophes that occurred. Firstly, both groups took extreme pride in getting anybody with any experience at all up the mountain. Secondly, neither group followed their own rules. Neither would fix lines, expecting the other team, or, two other completely inept and inexperienced teams, to fix the ropes, and neither obeyed their own decision to turn back at a certain hour, if the summit wasn't achieved. In addition, there were simply too many people on the mountain attempting the summit push at one time to allow for speed, efficiency, and safety. It was a perfect setup for disaster. Understandably, clients pay reasonably high fees to be personally escorted to the summit of Everest, but, when one needs to be carried and dragged to the summit, as happened with Doug Hansen and Sandy Pittman, it defies the honor of actually having climbed the mountain. One of the guides, Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian climber of unbelievable fitness, came under harsh scrutiny of Mr. Krakauer for reportedly abandoning several clients to look after his own personal safety, even though it was Boukreev's personal valor that saved several clients, Pittman and Fox from otherwise sure death. Boukreev actually wrote a book The Climb to defend his own actions. Criticism of Krakauer's writing, related to a failure to also look out for his fellow climbers by going ahead of the rest of the team. Part of this was understandable, as the rest of the team was not in good fitness and did not belong on the mountain, or should have turned back long ago. It has been argued the Krakauer's slick jouralistic prose tended to minimalize his faults, and accentuate others, though I didn't sense that this was domineering. Certainly, constructive criticism looks at the climbing errors, which was made by virtually everybody on the mountain, rather than a single person. So you might ask, did they learn their lessons? I don't think so. Get into the expedition groups' websites ( [...] ) and you will find that they are continuing this madness. You can even sign up for a several month ski-expedition to the South or North Pole! Not a good idea. Everest, and even smaller peaks, like Denali or even Rainier, should be limited to those who climb on a regular basis, and have a clue how to do advanced rescue and techniques of the mountain. A recent catastrophe on Rainier was exactly this sort of thing--poorly prepared clients who went through a short class on self arrest and knot tying being dragged up a capricious and unpredictable mountain.

Few personal narratives can come close to capturing the mixture of adventure, awe, and tension that Krakauer builds here. As it says in the title of my review, this is the only book that I have read twice. The second time, it wasn't until the end that I noticed I had just finished the book again - it's that gripping. From the first page to the last, Kraukauer pulls you in and doesn't let you go until you've encountered the suffocating feeling of the death zone, or temperatures that seem to turn blood to ice. Ultimately, Kraukauer is able to display the joys, sacrifices and terrors associated with summiting Everest - a feat that has come to symbolize the pinnacle of man's earthbound achievement. Simply splendid. Buy it!

I loved this book. Our book club picked it to read. It told me alot about mountain climbing. It was written so that you felt you were there.
I think these people are crazy to do something that they know may bring about their death. Some of them were married,or had small children. I had no idea about the length of time it took to climb a mountain like that and also the yucky bathroom problems and "thinking" problems that arise when you climb so high. I would recommend it as a learning experience, but it is sad to know that some climbers will not return home.

this was easily one of the best books i've ever read. now to read some of the other accounts of the 1996 everest disaster to get other perspectives.

Krakauers first hand account of the "Everest Disaster" is horrifying yet amazing. Once I arrived at the halfway point of the book, I said to myself "How did I not know about this?" The tragedy is so intense and unique, and Krakauer does absolute justice to the story and to himself. This is a tale that appeals to adventurers, mountaineers, history buffs, well you know what it just about appeals to anyone! Thats why it is such a profound story. I think it shouldn't be bound to one genre because some people limit thereselves to just one type of novel. I read this book for a college English class, but it turned out to be more of a personal enjoyment than I originally thought.

It's quite shocking at some points, because the death toll is a wee bit high, but this just as to the raw vivid reality that was the Everest Disaster. Krakauer writes like the thoughts in our heads. He relates to us and speaks from his personal experience, unlike writers who flaunt their intelligence. The book is real and unsheltered or sugarcoated.

Into Thin Air is one of those novels that you must read in life even though its not your genre. It's like one of those novels that serves as a foundation for American literature. Please go to your local library or Barnes and tell me if that first chapter doesn't suck you in like a tornado.

Absolutely amazing book. I couldn't stop talking about it with anyone I ran into that would listen! Shipped in a timely manner

This was a well written book, the reader felt the freezing weather, lack of oxygen and the cramping of muscles. It was so well documented. Jon Krakauer is an excellent writer.

As an outdoors and mountaineering enthusiast, I found this book to be a critical read in gaining knowledge and experience in my never ending pursuit of the thrills offered by the outdoors. It is important that all who undertake dangerous thrills, especially those found atop mountains or in dense woods, share in this story, and the dangers that we face. Some of us are naive enough to think that nothing bad can happen, even when all plans and protocols are strictly adhered to. This book brings us the harsh reality that even the most experienced climbers, naive or not, can succumb to the perils that we face in our own quests. I consider this book a must read for all mountaineers and outdoorsmen.

David Huntington

The book was received in great condition, timely and we were happy with our purchase.
thank you

While in college back in May, 2000, my paleontology professor told our class about this book. I remember him telling us about how he was unable to put the book down once he started reading it, about how those climbers froze to death, and about how one managed to rise from the dead and get off the mountain alive. Back then, I had never read a book of this length, ever, unless I was forced to by a teacher to write a report or study for a test. Honestly, I always felt reading was a waste of time, especially anything over 10-20 pages; this book is over 300. But for some strange reason this book was always in the back of my mind because I never forgot about the professor's account of how good it was to read.

Today is December 18, 2007, over 7 years since my professor mentioned the book to me. And for another reason I can't understand, last week I decided to purchase the book and read it, 7 years later. Once I got this book, I was so addicted to reading it I forgot who I was, where I was, or what I was doing. The next day I read the book in the morning on the train, skipped lunch at work and kept reading, and kept on reading later that day on the train ride home from work. The book was stuck to my hands like a magnet!

It's written very well and organized even better. From the first few pages you can't wait to read about what happens next. The author does a great job in describing the details of the climb (upward ascent), which is a little more than half way in to the book, and the remaining pages describe the horrific events that changed the lives of so many people that day. To say I was moved by this book would be an understatement.

On a bizarre side note, one night when I was about 75% in to the book, I remember it was late, probably 2:30AM, and I had been reading for almost 3 hours straight. The weather outside was very cold and extremely windy with gale force winds up to 60mph, not unlike the conditions on Everest as Jon describes in the book. Since it was late I decided to go to sleep, but this turned out to be almost impossible. My mind was so in to this book that the weather kept telling my mind that I was on the mountain experiencing the chilling conditions of that horrible night on Everest in 1996! I could not convince my mind otherwise! I was flat out crapping in my pants because I was so moved by the book. The brain can play some serious tricks on us, and needless to say, I got about 1-2 hours of sleep that night. The wind did not let up until 9AM the next morning. A moving experience, to say the least....

Now I am searching for books to read like a mad man, go figure...

Highly recommended!
I don't know why anybody would ever subject themselves to these types of extremes, but to read about them is fascinating.
Jon very subtlety makes himself to be the best climber of the mountain (which me very well may have been), and his honesty throughout and following the account comes through.
Highly recommend this book.

This great book, beautifully written by Krakauer, deals with the deadly experience of a group of climbers (leaded by experienced mountaineers) on their journey to Mt. Everest.
Values as humility, respect, perseverence (and also flaws as greed and selfishness) are neatly described.
If interested in drive a team towards an objective, it teaches on how to achieve it by showing what hasn't to be done: Krakauer's mates, they learn it the hard way.
A book you won't stop reading until finished.

This book is so moving. I read it really fast once and then immediately started over slowly, paying attention to details. The view of the writer and then the sharing in the final pages was so unbelievably honest and forthcoming. Thanks!

An expertly written, riveting narrative, with a lot of anger seeping through, the author unfortunately feels compelled to point fingers and cast blame for the tragedy on Everest in 1996. No one is spared this harsh examination, except himself, and this somewhat sours what is otherwise a fabulously riveting tale of tragedy and adventure.

Enough has been said and written about the qualities of this book - superbly paced, fabulous attention to detail, insight into the background and history of the mountain and the Sherpa's, commentary on the morality and wisdom of 'guided ascents' up Everest, etc etc. All of these are true - the book is great.

What struck me, however, after a re-read 10 years later (I read the book when it first was released, after reading the Outside article he wrote) was the discrepency and one-sided reporting of many of the personalities in the book. Krakauer only tells half the story of many of the people in this book - and usually the negative half.

The most classic one, of course, is his treatment of Anatoli Boukreev's behavior on that infamous summit day. I will skip an examination of this, as it has been covered in depth elsewhere, most specifically in Boukreev's rebuttal of this book, 'The Climb'. But just as striking are his depictions of other climbers on the mountain, and his, frankly, negative and sometimes unfair depictions of them.

For example - when one read's David Breashears account of the tragedy - a far more experienced Himalayan climber than Krakauer, who was filming with Ed Viesturs for the IMAX expedition - the opinion he has of Sandy Pittman are in stark contrast to Krakauer's account, which paints her as a primadonna who had no real business being on the mountain. Breashears, by contrast, paints her as a competent veteran of high-altitude climbing, who had already twice before been on Everest, had scaled six of the so- called 'Seven Summits'(the highest mountain on each continent), and knew the risks and conditions she would face.

His treatment of the Ian Woodall controversy also was interesting - while most accounts do agree that Woodall's expedition was rife with tensions and that Woodall was not a popular figure - Krakauer's account mentions that Nelson Mandela called to plead with the team to hold together for unity sake, and goes on at length about the disunity in the team and it's machinations on the mountain; but it completely *fails* to mention that Nelson Mandela both called the team again after the tragedy (when they decided to climb anyway) to wish them luck, and that on their return they were rewarded with honors by a Motion of Parliament of South Africa. It also doesn't discuss Cathy oDowd's reports that he (Woodall) went out, alone, into the storm, on that fateful night looking for survivors, and helped Neil Laughton, a guide for another expedition, bring back one of their stranded teammates. Krakauer does spend quite some time disparaging Woodall's experience and qualifications, but fails to note that Woodall and his team did not attempt to summit that fateful night, despite being at Camp IV - and he lived to tell the tale. But Krakauer's focus is only on Woodall's refusal to share his radio with the guides of Hall and Fischer's expedition.

There are more examples of finger-pointing and anger in this book, with others also cast in a negative light. The one-sidedness of narrative is, if you've read other accounts of the tragedy, disheartening, and often feels dishonest. The only people who really do not come off badly in this book are the members of the insular world of the climbing 'elite'. Krakauer's depiction of the Sherpa's is even filled with negative connotation, as he goes at length to discuss, on the one hand, their honor of the mountain and their anger at seeing westerners fornicating in their tents, but then he exclaims over their own 'libertine' habits and eagerness to peruse a men's magazine. Krakauer's prose, while attempting to stay 'neutral', is filled with vilification of almost everybody and everything in this story.

If, as the author states, this book was partly written as an act of catharsis, one could have wished he had done it without the negative undertones that permeate most of this book, that had a profound negative impact on many people's lives.

But despite this - its a gripping tale of adventure, and overambition - at 29,000 feet. I just urge the reader to take many of his personification's with a very large grain of salt, and to perhaps read some of the other accounts written about this tragedy.

I finally finished "Into Thin Air" last weekend. It's an addicting book. I promised you that once you pick it up and start reading it, it will be hard to put the book down.

Biography or any time of non-fiction read have not always been my taste and my pick. I am easily bored with many facts because I can't keep track of them. But this book is just amazing. You might think it is cold where you are but at least there is enough oxygen in the air... imagine going up to 28,000 feet in the cold... where oxygen is extremely unsaturated and the temperature is way below freezing point. It is when a decision can result in the life and death of individuals. Have you ever had a passion for something that you will risk your life just to achieve it? Have you ever wanted something so bad that it has hindered you moving forward? And sometimes you might wonder, is it worth it? How about pride? Will you accept your mistakes or weaknesses to move on and be better or you will always be a stubborn person who strongly agrees with your own opinions and always overestimate yourself?

The author did an incredible job in explaining the geography and collecting information from different sources. I can't say enough about this book. Just go and read it yourself, and you might wonder... yeah... things are usually taken for granted... and why on earth do people actually do things that could eventually cost their life.... after all... it's their life. No one can tell them what to do...

I loved this book and have read many of the books of these extraordinary climbers. The writing was so realistic I was short of breath!

Krakauer's Into Thin Air is a charged recollection of the tragic events on Everest in 1996. There is controversy surrounding his book and others, which, to me, makes the story even more interesting. While I was reading this book, I could not put it down. Krakauer is certainly a fine writer, and the plot and characters here come to life. Reading about the situation up at high camp and the peak of Everest in 1996 was chilling... I won't forget how I ached for the people stranded so close to relative safety. If you are interested in Everest and mountaineering, you cannot pass this book by. The tales of those who survived and those who did not, while spun through Krakauer's perspective, are nevertheless incredible.

By and large, the negative reviews posted here have little to do with the quality of this book and almost everything to do with the presumed character of the writer, Jon Krakauer. Similarly, those who dislike Krakauer's Into the Wild tend to focus their judgment of the book's worth on their own feelings regarding the essay's subject, Christopher McCandless, the young man who traveled the Western United States and Mexico for two years before perishing in Alaska. I read Krakauer differently. I am not interested in Krakauer's liberal politics, his emotional instability, and variable maturity. I am not interested in whether he portrays the absolute truth in his account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster for the simple fact that I don't believe the truth can be told. Writing is a very poor substitute for a frostbitten finger or a hypoxic head. All we have is Krakauer's writing, so let's look at what he does as a writer.

Krakauer is a sensationalist journalist, and since he reports on dangerous and near-death experiences regularly, he really can't help being grandiose and spectacular. The subject of his writing demands that he ratchet up the emotional power of his style and word choice. And let's be honest--don't we, as readers, demand it of him as well? Don't we want a voyeuristic and graphic account, where the size, the shape, and the smell of death seem to lift from the pages? Who wants to read about a mountain climbing disaster sans the emotion and the ego it takes to put one's self unnecessarily into such perilous situations?

Perhaps some readers want a quiet truth about what happened on the mountain, but this is to ask the impossible since every climber is guaranteed to have a different story and different perceptions of similar experiences--none of which are altogether true and none of which are altogether lies. And when he/she goes to tell about it, pieces of reality will inevitably be missed and left forgotten on the mountain. Emotions will well up and color an event with bias. Egos will peek from behind a boulder and whisper truths and nonsense.

No writer can make sense of all of that, but Krakauer has tried, and largely succeeded, to give the reader an idea of what it was like on Mt. Everest in late spring 1996. He may or may not have retraced every path exactly, but he acts as a good guide. He welcomes the reader to disagree with him and simultaneously makes a bold and convincing case. He admits a myriad of his own mistakes and points out the mistakes of others. I'm impressed mostly with the balanced feel of his account. For example, much is made of Krakauer's portrayal of Anatoli Boukreev's actions on the mountain. Those who read Krakauer as blaming Boukreev for the deaths of some climbers must not have closely read the many times Krakauer praises Boukreev's numerous heroic actions. By telling of both the shameful and heroic actions of Boukreev--all told from Krakauer's self-admitted hypoxic state--I find that Krakauer achieves a kind of truth about both Boukreev and himself.

In the end, for me, the book is about how truth changes states: It's solid and reliable when you start to climb Mt. Everest. And then you climb too high, and the truth becomes slippery and liquid; you're not quite sure and you're not quite in doubt. And then sometimes, the truth changes to a gas, a gyre of contradictions--the terrible beauty of chaos, which you'll never completely remember or entirely forget.

One of the most interesting, disturbing, didn't want to put it down books I've ever read!

There is no doubt that Into Thin Air is a compelling, gripping, story to read but it suffers from lack of objectivity from the writer. Krak had in his mind to support a viewpoint for his story that he was going to stick with regardless of the facts. I would urge anyone who really wants to know what went on on that expedition read "The Climb" by Anatoli Boukreev. It is not as well written as ITA but written well enough to be an engrossing read. There is no hand holding on Everest, that has been pretty clear in the climbing community since forever. If you read about all the expeditions going back to Mallory it is clear that Chomolungma demands respect. The mountain is strewn with corpses from various eras of climbing. It's like the mountain preserves them as a warning to those that follow.

The story is entertaining, but sadly lacking in fact. Krakauer spreads gross lies about Anatoli Boukreev in this work of fiction. When Anatoli Boukreev responded to this slander, Krakauer shut up, until Anatoli Boukreev tragically died, then Krakauer opened his lying mouth again. Krakuer is a man without honor and this book should be recognized for the lie that it is. I suggest reading "The Climb," if you want non-fiction.

This was an amazing story of the 1996 tragedy that occurred on Mt. Everest. Krakauer's writing is sharp and compelling and his first person account of the ordeal puts the reader on the mountain with him and his team. He uses his own experiences, post-event interviews and transcripts to pull the whole thing together. But one of the most intriguing aspects of this book is the history of the mountain itself and the hundreds of adventurers who have attempted its summit. I was deeply moved by Krakauer's narrative and his own sense of guilt (which may or may not have been unfounded). It was a breathtaking picture of the sheer will it takes to face the extreme cold and altitude and the physical demand required to become one of the elite who reach the top. I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who attempt Everest, but I also think they're insane for sacrificing millions of brain cells and the health of their bodies to accomplish such a feat. Overall, though it was an amazing book and I loved Krakauer's writing. Everyone should read this book!

This is not a book to read on a cold, snowy, winter night. You will feel the intense suffering of the climbers struggling to summit Mount Everest. This is a great book, Jon Krakauer writes well enough to put the reader in the boots of the climbers to feel their panic, pain and suffering. There is a lot to be learned about climbing Everest in this book.

Krakauer manages to enthrall you with the beauty of Everest while never minimizing the dangers of climbing it. If you have any friends who are adrenaline junkies who fantasize about conquering this mountain, give them the book. If they still plan to climb, scratch the surface and you'll find traces of a death wish.
You will feel the pull of the challenge of the climb and the threat of its magnitude with every page. Krakauer keeps you on a tightrope, despite being painfully aware of most of the tragic outcomes.
Masterfully executed.

Wow. What a book. Into Thin Air is the story of the ill-fated 1996 Mount Everest climbing season, as told by Krakauer, a journalist for Outside magazine, and a seasoned, albeit non-Himalayan, climber. Krakauer lived to summit Everest and return; nine of his fellow climbers did not return. Why did disaster strike with such ferocity? There are a number of perspectives to take. The wisdom of professional climbers taking paying customers up a mountain they otherwise would never come near has to be questioned. One client was literally dragged up the mountain (short-roped) on summit day by a sherpa who was supposed to be setting ropes further up the mountain. Many other smaller non-fatal errors accumulated to create huge problems later in the day. The best decisions on summit day seemed to be made by the non-professional climbers, which made me wonder about the cumulative effects of oxygen deprivation. Over 25,000 feet, the 'death zone', humans lose thousands of brain cells each minute due to lack of oxygen. Maybe the professional guides had been up to the summit one or two times too many. The biggest factor however, appears to have been the mountain itself, and the killer weather which is associated with it. In the end, reading this book teaches you that even with all of the high tech equipment and training, nobody climbs Everest unless the mountain decides to allow it.

Krakauer writes in a clear, entertaining, and comprehensive style. The book never dragged. The author includes enough history -of the mountain, of climbing, and of the personalities on the mountain in 1996- to put 1996's events in a meaningful context. He made me care about these eccentric, some would say self-destructive, people. There is so much in this book. There are heroes, villains, saints, a tiny bit of sex, heartbreak (one client decided to turn around short of the summit and head back to safety only to be talked back into trying for the summit by his team leader, resulting in both of their deaths), horror (good people are shown suffering unbearably, only to die in the end), suspense - and all of it really happened. Some of the events documented are so strange, bizarre and unlikely, that a fiction writer would probably choose to tone them down to make them more believable.

Krakauer is quite deliberate about qualifying his account of the 1996 disaster. As humans we are limited in how much we can take in and process of large, complex events. We forget too quickly, we are selective in what we see and hear - we only experience a fraction of what really is. And yet our minds seem hard-wired to make sense of events which probably do not make sense. Into Thin Air is only a guess as to what really happened on that strange mountain in 1996, even though it was written by a professional journalist who was in the thick of the action. If Krakauer could re-live it all 100 times, each time profiting from previous experience and each time looking at a different angle, perhaps it would all become more understandable. Krakauer of course wouldn't do this. He never wants to go back to Mount Everest.

Reading this book is like having someone dump a handful of cold powdery snow down the back of your shirt. It's a wake-up call of sorts, illustrating what a strange, wonderful, mysterious and terrifying place we live in, and how tentative and fragile is mankind's place and hold over this planet. This is a great book.