Jäätäviin korkeuksiin : murhenäytelmä Mount… (1997)

Wow, this is one of the greatest books about mountaineering I ever read. The author manages to pack so many details about climbing and all the people into this book, but also explains everything also for people with few or no knowledge about the topic. And even if there are so many background stories and details, it's always exciting to read and don't get boring.
The only thing is, that it's sometimes hard to follow with all the different names, but a big Nameregister and some photos help a lot.
Great book, and a big recommendation for everyone interested in mountains. It's great to have a big story like this written by an author who know his job. ( )

This book is Krakauer's well received account into the 1996 everest disaster. I know quite a lot about the disaster as I have read about it quite widely but had avoided Into Thin Air thus far. I had read that Krakaeur treated climber Anatoli Boukreev unfairly in the book when I read The Climb and this put me off of reading Into Thin Air. I finally decided to give it a shot and I'm so glad I did as this book really lives up to it's reputation. Krakauer climbed a fair bit when he was younger but his career as a journalist had taken him away from his hobby. He wanted to write about the growing commercialisation of Everest expeditions and was commissioned to do so by a magazine. One thing lead to another and the magazine bought a place for him on the best expedition companiy at the time, Adventure Consultants lead by Rob Hall. By the time the expedition was over, 12 people had died including very expedition leaders and experienced climbers, Rob Hall and Scott Fisher. The book looks into Krakauer's personal experience of climbing Everest and tries to piece togther what actually happened with the benefit of speaking to others involved after the event.

Krakauer is a very good writer and that alone had earned the book 4 stars from me. Where he earns the 5th star is in the final section of the book where he reveals the negative correspondence he got following the publication of the article he wrote. He has been accused of not helping and in fact ignoring those in peril amongst other things. At this point I think most writers would have ignored this correspondence or chose to defend their position but Krakauer does neither. He presents it as what it is, a different opinion on what happened and leaves it as that for the reader to decide. Having read this book, my opinion on him with regards to the event has changed, and although I still think he is a little harsh on Boukreev I don't begrudge his opinion even if I disagree with it. ( )

Nothing compared to my harrowing journey up Mount Sequoyah. ( )

This was a well written story and great if this is your type of genre. ( )

This is a book that I’ve wanted to read for a long time. I’ve read Jon Krakauer before and knew he had an easy, enjoyable style of writing. I expected this to be a gripping story, but I had no idea exactly how enthralling it would be.

Let me start by saying that I also had no idea how dangerous it is to climb Mount Everest. Difficult, yes, but when actually presented with the statistics (and these are out of date – they don’t include several subsequent tragedies) I was absolutely shocked. That tourists, as in, not professional mountain climbers, would continue to pay upwards of $65,000 apiece to be led into such a deadly situation leaves me speechless. Not speechless enough to not find the words to tell my husband that I am no longer okay with him climbing Everest, but I had few words beyond that.

The book explores Krakauer’s firsthand account of a climb during the deadly 1996 season, during which several of his fellow climbers and guides, among others, lost their lives. After reading his story it is clear how easily (and how often) tragedy strikes on this mountain. There are no rescue missions to the top of Mount Everest. You are literally hiking at the altitude that jets fly, under what are severe conditions at best.

I can’t remember ever reading a nonfiction book that kept me in such a state of suspense before. It almost reads like fiction, and like a horror story, it’s scary. I could not put it down. Five stars. ( )