Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer ★★★☆☆

Emotionally raw and articulate

Non Fiction - Memoir

333 pages

First published 1997

Literary awards: ALA Alex Award (1998), ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (1998)

John Krakuer, a journalist sent to be a member of Rob Hall’s expedition to summit Mt. Everest, writes an emotional and reasonably accurate recount of the 1996 Everest disaster. Krakuer, lays out the series of events that ended in catastrophe, while trying to work out for himself what went wrong and what part he may have had in it.

Left in devastating position with no good choices on Everest and then dealing with survivor’s guilt afterward, Krakuer, really strives to be honest, but fair as he examines the different aspects of this catastrophic event.  This story played itself out on a world stage and has so many players involved and other factors influencing it, so to hear Krakuer views is fascinating.  He takes a rather brave and unabashed look at a tragedy he personally experienced and what he perceives as his own failings during the incident.  Well researched, nicely paced, and emotionally raw, Krakuer effectively articulates his thoughts and feelings connected to this horrific event and the fallout from it.  The story is well written and has fantastically vivid word pictures, though, I have to say that on occasion I did feel like the prose was a little choked by the amount of detail.

This rather graphic and Interesting introduction into a world I know very little about (you know, as a fan of staying alive and sufferer of from fear of hitting the ground with great force– though my husband’s claims that you are more likely to roll down the decline and die that way, thanks sweetie for that bit of lovely information– I personally have had little interest in mountaineering) has been pretty amazing and hasn’t changed my mind that I still don’t want to try it.  Frankly I am just awestruck by the amount a punishment a person is willing to purposely put themselves through and I can’t decide whether these mountaineers are crazy or just determined or both.

ISBN  0385494785 (ISBN13: 9780385494786)