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Searching... Hattiesburg Library | 796.522095496 KRAKAUER | Book | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top.nbsp;nbsp;No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild . On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world.nbsp;nbsp;A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.
Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.
Into the Wild is available on audio, read by actor Campbell Scott.
Author Notes
Jon Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on April 12, 1954. He received a degree in environmental studies from Hampshire College in Massachusetts in 1976. He worked as a carpenter, fisherman, and writer. He articles on mountain climbing appeared in several publications including GQ, National Geographic, Architectural Digest, Playboy, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone. In 1996, he climbed Mt. Everest, but a storm took the lives of four of the five teammates who reached the summit with him. An analysis of the calamity he wrote for Outside magazine received a National Magazine Award. An article he wrote for Smithsonian about volcanology received the 1997 Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism.
He is the author of several books including Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith; Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman; Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way; and Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. His book, Into the Wild, was made into a movie in 2007. He is also the editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
What set out to be a magazine article on top-of-the-line tours that promise safe ascents of Mt. Everest to amateur climbers has become a gripping story of a 1996 expedition gone awry and of the ensuing disaster that killed two top guides, a sherpa and several clients. "Climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain," writes Krakauer (Into the Wild). "And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering... most of us were probably seeking, above all else, something like a state of grace." High-altitude climbers are an eccentric breed‘Olympian idealists, dreamers, consummate sportsmen, egomaniacs and thrill-seekers. Excerpts from the writings of several of the best-known of them, including Sir Edmund Hillary, kick off Krakauer's intense reports on each leg of the ill-fated expedition. His own descriptions of the splendid landscape are exhilarating. Survival on Mt. Everest in the "Dead Zone" above 25,000 feet demands incredible self-reliance, responsible guides, supplemental oxygen and ideal weather conditions. The margin of error is nil and marketplace priorities can lead to disaster; and so Krakauer criticizes the commercialization of mountaineering. But while his reports of guides' bad judgments are disturbing, they evoke in him and in the reader more compassion than wrath, for, in the Dead Zone, experts lose their wits nearly as easily as novices. The intensity of the tragedy is haunting, and Krakauer's graphic writing drives it home: one survivor's face "was hideously swollen; splotches of deep, ink-black frostbite covered his nose and cheeks." On the sacred mountain Sagarmatha, the Nepalese name for Everest, the frozen corpses of fallen climbers spot the windswept routes; they will never be buried, but in this superb adventure tale they have found a fitting monument. Author tour. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
A handful of people have stood atop Everest, and Krakauer is one of them. Sent to Nepal in May 1996 after his success with Into the Wild (1995), he was to report on the commercialization of ascents of the mountain but was instead compelled to tell an icy story of survival and death. As an inquiry into the outer limits of human strength and into the inner turmoil of survivor's guilt, Krakauer's narrative leaves a reader virtually breathless, sweating as he sweats, gasping as he gasps, crying as he cries over dying friends. The disaster made worldwide headlines last year, and its immediate cause was natural--a freak blizzard caught dozens of people near the summit. But the enabling condition was the mere presence at Everest of amateurs, some with minimal mountaineering skill. Guides, Sherpas, and $65,000 was all one needed to make the attempt. At the summit, the pressures of the guide-client relationship were immense, even overwhelming the imperative to flee the storm that overwhelmed the victims. Krakauer's eyewitness to the unfolding tragedy makes a transfixing drama of hubris, responsibility, and sacrificial heroism, which will mark the memory of all who read it. --Gilbert Taylor
Choice Review
The 1996 climbing season on Mt. Everest was a tragic one: 12 people died in May alone. Nine of them, many of whom were clients and guides in two commercial expeditions, died in a single, two-day storm. Author Krakauer, an experienced climber and accomplished writer, was a member of one of the commercial expeditions working as a reporter for Outside magazine. The deaths and Krakauer's subsequent magazine article caused a public debate on the role of guided expeditions to the world's highest mountain. This book is Krakauer's complete account of the events surrounding these deaths. His sensitive and clear narrative gives an excellent portrayal of the motivations, psychology, physical difficulties, and sociology associated with expeditions such as these. The major weakness of this volume is the illustrations, few but adequate. Well recommended for a general readership, as are Krakauer's other books (Eiger Dreams, 1990; Into the Wild, 1996). A. Spero; formerly, Northern Michigan University
School Library Journal Review
Heroism and sacrifice triumph over foolishness, fatal error, and human frailty in this bone-chilling narrative in which the author recounts his experiences on last year's ill-fated, deadly climb. Thrilling armchair reading. (Nov.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Library Journal Review
Krakauer, a rising authority on all things wild (e.g., Into the Wild, LJ 11/15/95), here tells of a harrowing climb on Mount Everest, during which eight people died. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.