Jon Krakauer - Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Diaster

Pros: Vivid, suspenseful writing
Cons: There's nothing bad about this book.

Have you ever felt the urge to accomplish some feat of physical endurance?

Maybe you have considered skydiving? Or perhaps the thought of bungi –jumping has crossed your mind from time to time?

Author Jon Krakauer had an obsession...

Pros: Fascinating story about a once in a lifetime trip.
Cons: Details some sad realities about Mount Everest. Ultimately a sad story.

I tried to read Jon Krakauer's 1997 book Into Thin Air when it was still pretty new on the shelves. For some reason, the first time I tried to read Into Thin Air, I was unable to get into it and put it aside. I recently decided to ...

Pros: Amazing recounting of the strength of the human spirit - the ice
Cons: a mountain strewn with oxygen bottles, old tents and dead bodies

Everything I needed to know about climbing Mount Everest, I learned from my moms

My mom always told me not to climb up anywhere that I could not get back down from on my own, and I have tried to heed this advice over the years. I think...

Pros: Excellent writing, gripping story
Cons: Not even one.

Because it's there.

-George Mallory, in response to "an irritating newspaperman who demanded to know why he wanted to climb Everest."

This was also the answer given by a middle-aged and pot-bellied Captain Kirk, as a...

Pros: The story is an exciting one
Cons: Lack of perspective, structure is a bit spastic

The bookstore I use (and it isn’t alone), puts Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air in the travel section. A goodly portion of Mr. Krakauer’s journalism work has been in specialized travel magazines (so the placement isn’t ...

Pros: One of the best adventure books of all time
Cons: None

The Wall Street Journal ranks Into Thin Air “among the greatest adventure books of all time.” And after reading this book I can understand why. It is a story of such bone-chilling horror and genuine nightmare than I had to ask myself a...

Pros: An unforgetable experience
Cons: NONE

"I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time or any to great of claim that one is in control of what one recounts. I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in...

Pros: Exciting; detailed descriptions; vivid photos; attractive and well crafted book.
Cons: None

I am a home body who enjoys her high adventure through the eyes of the more reckless adventurer. INTO THIN AIR is definitely a harrowing and hair raising adventure that, for many a reader may be a little too real for comfort.

I had first read...

Pros: Well written prose describing the 1996 Everest tragedy.
Cons: Ego-stroking, subjective account.

Here I am, sweltering in record-breaking San Diego weather, trying to get over a bout of the flu. So what do you do when you feel like kaka and need to cool off? I've had two accounts of the 1996 Everest tragedy sitting in my bookshelf for well over a...

Pros: Amazing story told compassionately and critically.
Cons: I didn't want it to end.

The entire concept of actually climbing to the top of Mount Everest has always seemed somewhat mythical to me. I knew that it had been done but I assumed that the men that summited were superhuman, not like the rest of us. I also assumed that was the...

Pros: The glory of it all
Cons: The loss of it all

I gotta tell you the truth, I never real books like this. I am a King/Koontz fan. Blood and guts, that's my style. I buy books by the cover only so naturally "Into Thin Air" equaled kidnapping to me!

Boy was I surprised!
...

Pros: heartwrenching, thrilling, educational, personal,
Cons: none

After reading Jon Krakauer's firsthand account of the worst Mt. Everest disaster in recent history, I was left feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. I could not put the book down. As I read the horrific events unfolding before me, I found...

Pros: Reads like a childhood adventure book, has an ending
Cons: Self-indulgence paraded as heroism, nauseating

This is what one of my grandfathers referred to as an 'aeroport book' -- buy it while waiting for your flight, read it on the plane, pitch it or lose it or just pass it along when you reach your destination; not something worth keeping on your shelf. You...

Pros: beautifully written, gripping story
Cons: not wholly objective

What drives people to attempt to climb Mount Everest?

Mountaineer George Mallory gave the most famous answer: “because it’s there.” He, like one in every four climbers, died on the way to the summit.

It’s a brutal experience. The...

Pros: Exciting, fast-paced, well-written, horribly fascinating
Cons: Not exactly an uplifting read -- prepare to be saddened and bewildered at people's stupidity and the mountain's indifference

Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" kicked off the current "adventure" reading craze, with millions of couch potatoes sitting snug in their living rooms living vicariously through a small group of maniacs who choose to risk their and...