A review by waywardcrow
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

adventurous dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.75

Well damn. I don't know what exactly I was expecting when I picked up this book. I knew it would be tragic but nothing could have prepared me for how graphically and vividly Krakauer was able to portray the failed expedition. Even though it was hard to remember who was who in the long list of people on the mountain, I still felt deeply saddened by every death. This is an incredible accounting of such a traumatizing experience. This book really makes you think deeply about human mortality and the psychology behind those who are willing to jeopardize their lives to accomplish the most dangerous exploits. It also makes you think about humanity's respect (or lack thereof) for nature, the inability to admire great beauty from afar to the point that beauty is destroyed. On a lighter note, I learned a lot about climbing and there's much more still that I couldn't quite grasp. Maybe once I recover in ten years, l'll read again to try to understand more about the geography and climbing techniques the author did so well in attempting to describe.
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