Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

Jon Krakauer (1997)

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THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

Into Thin Air is the firsthand account and best-selling book by Jon Krakauer, a noted journalist for Outside magazine, on the May 1996 disaster at Mount Everest when five climbers were killed in a single day. Krakauer was on assignment on an expedition with an agency called Adventure Consultants led by Rob Hall, a very highly respected and experienced guide who was one of those killed. The sad story is very well written, moving chronically through the preparation and the actual climb, providing real insight into the individual climbers’ motivations for such a dangerous passion, and of course describing the actual events and the corresponding guilt of having survived. The book also is controversial; both for the implied insinuation that experienced guides might sometimes compromise on safety in the competition to get to the summit, and for the fact that other participants provide different views on what happened that fateful day.

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ABOUT JON KRAKAUER

Jon Krakauer started out as an adventure travel journalist but has now expanded his writing to other non-fiction topics of human extremes. Into the Wild is well known, but his books on Mormon Fundamentalists, the heroism of Pat Tillman, and the epidemic of rape on college campuses are also very good books worth reading. Click here to learn more about Krakauer's work.

OTHER A5 RECOMMENDATIONS ON MOUNT EVEREST

GREAT QUOTES FROM INTO THIN AIR

“Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking above all else, something like a state of grace.”

INTERESTING FACTS & LINKS:

Read Alistair Scott's 1997 review of Into Thin Air at the New York Times.
The story on that fateful 1996 summer on Mount Everest was turned into a very popular IMAX movie in 1998 and then turned into a feature film in 2015, both called Everest. Click here to read Outside's interview with the 2015 movie's cast and crew. Please note that Krakauer clearly disputes some of the way things are depicted in the movie, as summarized in this separate article.
This book is truly one of our favorites. Click here to see the entire list of our top recommendations from A5 Travel Books.