Into Thin Air

Imagine you're in an airplane. That's roughly how high Mount Everest rises at the peak. People climb as high as many airplanes fly for fun. Some even do it without oxygen tanks.

Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, written in 1997, is a 374-page nonfiction/adventure novel. I like this book because Krakauer's writing is interesting and fun to read, not what I used to think of when I thought about nonfiction. He writes nonfiction, but in a creative way, crafting some of my favorites sentences ever. In some ways, I like his writing even more than my favorite fiction authors. Within the first chapter, a tiny 7-paged thing, there are easily 10 incredible sentences. And his writing stays that good for almost the entire book (there's a part toward the middle describing the history of Mount Everest that's a bit drier than the rest of the novel).

In the Spring of 1996, several different parties paid roughly $50,000 per person for a chance to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Weather conditions, some unfortunate decisions, several poorly prepared climbers, and simply too many people on the mountain at once made for one of the worst disasters to happen on Everest. From the beginning of this story, you know things aren't going to work. The fun is not in reading about how things turned out, but about why they turned out that way. You'll both want to blame and forgive just about everyone by the time you finish the last page.

Krakauer's style is similar to a combination of what's written in history books and your favorite short story from English class. Krakauer has some Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) and Piers Paul Read (Alive) to him, but I probably only think that because of my limited exposure to nonfiction. Readers over 14 years old and into hiking, camping, climbing, the outdoors, or sports will enjoy this book.