Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Oct 23, 2008 Tara Lynn rated it did not like it

Shelves: booklist-for-2008

I read this in the beginning of the year, and while I had great expectations for it, it had all the earmarks of a textbook badly done in narrative form.

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Jun 08, 2011 Kristen rated it really liked it

This is the second of Krakauer's books that I've read. He's a good writer, and I like the way his books combine personal autobiography with the subject he's focused on (more so with Into The Wild, which was definitely not intended to be autobiographical, but contained several autobiographical components, where this one was largely autobiographical). I found the ending to be a bit rushed, as though he found himself either rushing to meet a print deadline or emotionally unable to delve any deeper ...more

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Dec 02, 2008 Jamie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

I hadn't really heard many of the details of this tragedy when it happened so I started this book with only a vague idea that it was about a disaster on Mt Everest and that it had been highly recommended by people I knew.

What a tale! As I read the account of the trip up with all the complications and the major physiological changes that take place as they reached higher altitudes I realized just how much I did NOT know about the sport of mountain climbing and that there was more danger to it tha ...more

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Mar 14, 2009 Danny rated it really liked it

This book is a great beach read. Fast action (especially considering the labor required for every step from Krakauer and the other climbers) and the very real dangers make this read more like a novel than an actual event.

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