Published in 1997, this best-selling nonfiction book is Krakauer’s first-hand account of the May 1996 Mount Everest disaster in which a dozen people died during bad weather on the mountain, including his two professional guides, Rob Hall and Andy Harris. Krakauer, a professional journalist, was sent to the mountain to write an article for Outside magazine about the commercialization of summit expeditions on Everest. Little did he know that he would become involved in one of the more famous (or infamous) events in the mountain’s history.
I’ve wanted to read this book ever since May 2004, when National Geographic ranked “Into Thin Air” at No. 9 on its list of “100 Best Adventure Books.” The book is also on a number of other “best-of” lists, including the No. 48 spot on Sports Illustrated’s “Top 100 Sports Books of All Time” list. The website, The Art of Manliness, listed “Into Thin Air” on two of its “best of” lists. It’s No. 3 on TAOM’s “Essential Adventure Library: 50 Nonfiction Adventure Books” list and No. 76 on TAOM’s “100 Must Read Books: The Man’s Essential Library” list.
Interestingly, “Into Thin Air” was not included on one of my favorite “best-of” adventure lists, Outside Magazine’s “25 Best Adventure Books of the Last 100 Years” list, which was released in May 2003. I wonder if the editors at Outside didn’t put Krakauer on the list because he wrote “Into Thin Air” while working for them and because he is a frequent contributor to the magazine.
“Into Thin Air” reminded me a lot of Maurice Herzog’s famous mountaineering book, “Annapurna,” which was published in 1951. “Annapurna” is the best-selling mountaineering book of all-time, and is considered by many to be the finest mountain-climbing book ever written. My personal favorite is “Into Thin Air,” but both books are great and will leave you wanting to take up mountaineering.
“Into Thin Air” is a controversial book and has met with criticism. Krakauer addresses this criticism in his book and has much to say in his defense. Much of the criticism regards his descriptions of the actions of Russian climber Anatoli Boukreev. Boukreev wrote his own book about the 1996 incident on Everest called “The Climb.” Not long after his book came out though, the 39-year-old Boukreev died on Christmas Day 1997, killed by an avalanche while trying to climb the south face of Annapurna in Nepal.
If you like “Into Thin Air,” I recommend that you also read Krakauer’s 1996 book, “Into the Wild,” which is almost as good as “Into Thin Air.” “Into the Wild” was included on Outside’s “25 Best Adventure Books of the Last 100 Years” list. His other books include “Under the Banner of Heaven” (2003) and “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman” (2007).
In the end, how many of you have read “Into Thin Air”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Why? Let us know in the comments section below.
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