Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer

n my attempt to read something other than fiction for a change, I decided to pick this bestseller about the tragedy on Mt. Everest in 1996. A morbid start, some people would say, to read about how all these people died in subzero temperatures in a place over 8km high.

There is much more than morbid curiosity to all of us who have picked up this book, I'm sure. First, it's extremely well written and will keep one turning page after page. Second, it does not only focus on the tragedy: it tells a lot about other historic expeditions to the top of the world explaining in detail, without ever becoming boring, all the dangers and hardships of such an endeavour. Anyone who'd like to know what it takes to get to the summit of Mt. Everest would enjoy this book. Mountaneering fans rejoice.

The book was born from an article that would originally have meant to discuss the comercialization of climbing the mountain: Jon Krakauer was sponsored in this expedition by Outside magazine with this specifi goal in mind. And the book does talk about this subject at lenght. But then, things went wrong and people died. And people got scared and scarred. Krakauer as one of the survivors was forced to relive in his mind, over and over, the actions of all those involved in the climb, including himself. Not satisfied with the depth he could get to in a magazine article, he sought catharsis in writing a full-fleshed account in book form and so it came to be.

The book is his version of the events. It's fair to expect that one who's been at the heart of such a shocking experience might not be able to retell all important details with clarity of mind and impartiality. It seems, however, that Krakauer did his homework and interviewed other members of the expeditions involved to get an accurate view. Probably there will not be an authoritative description of what went wrong in 1996 and on whose shoulders the blame should be placed, if at all, but this is definitely worth reading. If you become as interested in the subject as I have become, perhaps you'll want to read "The Climb", by Anatoli Boukreev, another survivor of this climb that is supposed to paint a pretty different picture. Or maybe before reading any of these books you'd like to read some online articles about it at Outside.