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Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster Paperback – Illustrated, Oct. 19 1999
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A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.
By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself.
This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I.
In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAnchor
- Publication dateOct. 19 1999
- Dimensions13.06 x 1.93 x 21.34 cm
- ISBN-100385494785
- ISBN-13978-0385494786
- Lexile measure1320L
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Product description
Review
"This is a great book, among the best ever on mountaineering. Gracefully and efficiently written, carefully researched, and actually lived by its narrator, it shares a similar theme with another sort of book, a novel called "The Great Gatsby." —The Washington Post
"Into Thin Air ranks among the great adventure books of all time." —The Wall Street Journal
"Krakauer is an extremely gifted storyteller as well as a relentlessly honest and even-handed journalist, the story is riveting and wonderfully complex in its own right, and Krakauer makes one excellent decision after another about how to tell it.... To call the book an adventure saga seems not to recognize that it is also a deeply thoughtful and finely wrought philosophical examination of the self." —Elle
"Hypnotic, rattling.... Time collapses as, minute by minute, Krakauer rivetingly and movingly chronicles what ensued, much of which is near agony to read.... A brilliantly told story that won't go begging when the year's literary honors are doled out." —Kirkus Reviews
"Though it comes from the genre named for what it isn't (nonfiction), this has the feel of literature: Krakauer is Ishmael, the narrator who lives to tell the story but is forever trapped within it.... Krakauer's reporting is steady but ferocious. The clink of ice in a glass, a poem of winter snow, will never sound the same." —Mirabella
"Into Thin Air is a remarkable work of reportage and self-examination.... And no book on the 1996 disaster is likely to consider so honestly the mistakes that killed his colleagues." —Newsday
"A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —People
"In this movingly written book, Krakauer describes an experience of such bone-chilling horror as to persuade even the most fanatical alpinists to seek sanctuary at sea level." —Sports Illustrated
From the Back Cover
By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself.
This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guideAnatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I.
In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation afterchallenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."
About the Author
From the Paperback edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Among my five teammates who reached the top, four, including Hall, perished in a rogue storm that blew in without warning while we were still high on the peak. By the time I'd descended to Base Camp nine climbers from four expeditions were dead, and three more lives would be lost before the month was out.
The expedition left me badly shaken, and the article was difficult to write. Nevertheless, five weeks after I returned from Nepal I delivered a manuscript to Outside, and it was published in the September issue of the magazine. Upon its completion I attempted to put Everest out of my mind and get on with my life, but that turned out to be impossible. Through a fog of messy emotions, I continued trying to make sense of what had happened up there, and I obsessively mulled the circumstances of my companions' deaths.
The Outside piece was as accurate as I could make it under the circumstances, but my deadline had been unforgiving, the sequence of events had been frustratingly complex, and the memories of the survivors had been badly distorted by exhaustion, oxygen depletion, and shock. At one point during my research I asked three other people to recount an incident all four of us had witnessed high on the mountain, and one of us could agree on such crucial facts as the time, what had been said, or even who had been present. Within days after the Outside article went to press, I discovered that a few of the details I'd reported were in error. Most were minor inaccuracies of the sort that inevitably creep into works of deadline journalism, but one of my blunders was in no sense minor, and it had a devastating impact on the friends and family of one of the victims.
Only slightly less disconcerting than the article's factual errors was the material that necessarily had to be omitted for lack of space. Mark Bryant, the editor of Outside, and Larry Burke, the publisher, had given me an extraordinary amount of room to tell the story: they ran the piece at 17,000 words -- four or five times as long as a typical magazine feature. Even so, I felt that it was much too abbreviated to do justice to the tragedy. The Everest climb had rocked my life to its core, and it became desperately important for me to record the events in complete detail, unconstrained by a limited number of column inches. This book is the fruit of that compulsion.
The staggering unreliability of the human mind at high altitude made the research problematic. To avoid relying excessively on my own perceptions, I interviewed most of the protagonists at great length and on multiple occasions. When possible I also corroborated details with radio logs maintained by people at Base Camp, where clear thought wasn't in such short supply. Readers familiar with the Outside article may notice discrepancies between certain details (primarily matters of time) reported in the magazine and those reported in the book; the revisions reflect new information that has come to light since publication of the magazine piece.
Several authors and editors I respect counseled me not to write the book as quickly as I did; they urged me to wait two or three years and put some distance between me and the expedition in order to gain some crucial perspective. Their advice was sound, but in the end I ignored it -- mostly because what happened on the mountain was gnawing my guts out. I thought that writing the book might purge Everest from my life.
It hasn't, of course. Moreover, I agree that readers are often poorly served when an author writes as an act of catharsis, as I have done here. But I hoped something would be gained by spilling my soul in the calamity's immediate aftermath, in the roil and torment of the moment. I wanted my account to have a raw, ruthless sort of honesty that seemed in danger of leaching away with the passage of time and the dissipation of anguish.
Some of the same people who warned me against writing hastily had also cautioned me against going to Everest in the first place. There were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act -- a triumph of desire over sensibility. Any person who would seriously consider it is almost by definition beyond the sway of reasoned argument.
The plain truth is that I knew better but went to Everest anyway. And in doing so I was a party to the death of good people, which is something that is apt to remain on my conscience for a very long time.
Product details
- Publisher : Anchor; Illustrated edition (Oct. 19 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385494785
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385494786
- Item weight : 249 g
- Dimensions : 13.06 x 1.93 x 21.34 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Travel Writing Guides
- #1 in Air Travel Guides
- #1 in Mountain Climbing
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

In 1999 Jon Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. According to the award citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."
www.instagram.com/krakauernotwriting/
http://www.jonkrakauer.com/additional-reading
https://medium.com/@jonkrakauer
www.facebook.com/jonkrakauer/
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Despite being rather slow pace – which is due to the nature of the sport – the book is well written and captivating. Although a bit confusing at times, due to the large number of people involved from different groups, each individual is identified in a comprehensive list of names and functions at the very beginning. The author also takes a considerable amount space in the book to inform about the background and experience of each participant, which allows the reader to connect with individual climbers.
I will not go into the details of the climb itself nor of the tragedy in this review – just read the book! But it may be beneficial to other readers to know that, as I was going through the second half of the book (when the going was particularly tough), I watched the movie that was made right after the events entitled Into Thin Air – Death on Everest, available on YouTube. This gave me a better perspective on the challenges facing the climbers than I would have had from reading the book alone. Therefore, I strongly recommend watching one of several movies that were made about this expedition, while reading the book or soon after!
I found the Epilogue particularly moving as it provides an account of how some of the survivors have recovered from the tragedy, many of whom will never enjoy a normal life again. But what puzzled me the most was the reaction of some of the victim's relatives, almost blaming Jon for what happened, all because he was cautious enough not to let himself become a casualty. Particularly disturbing is a letter from the sister of Scott Fisher, one of the team leaders who died on his way down from the mountain. The letter, which is reproduced in the book, throws all kinds of accusations that Jon acted selfishly in total disregard to those whose lives were in danger. This coming from a person who was thousands of miles from the scene when the drama unfolded is outrageous, to say the least. I admire Jon for having had the honesty and the courage to include these accusatory statements in his book.
of that awful event. I dislike Sandy Hill Pittnan the most. Even if she wasn't to blame, why was she trying to be a diva up there. Do you want to climb? Or be diva? Make up your mind! Furthermore, the delay was caused by Lopsang not bringing the ropes and helping Ang Dorje set them. He was busy helping Sandy be a diva. So I do blame her. It's possible Namba and Weathers may have fared better if Boukreev had helped more on the descent. But everyone would have been hours earlier if they hadn't been held up because the ropes didn't get set.
1) too bad Jon Krakauer had to play reporter throughout it all- and the writing was detached as a result of that /or maybe just that he has a passionless, bland quality in his own personality that seeped out in his writing... that said the quality of writing is great..it was had a flat monotonous tone almost...
2) in true american style the characters are described as charicatures.. probably again he didn't bother or care to get to know them well or on any deep level ( which is an ugly american trait this kind of superficiality and self absorption- worse in other climbing books by americans for sure..) ...so i didn't care when any of the people died. but when you're writing a book like this...i should care. at least about a few of them. but they were written about in such a two dimensional way that i didn't care.
3) he seemed to miss the major axis of the "story" i thought which would have brought more pathos, and even drama to the narrative ...He minimized the very moving and very dramatic story with Rob Hall who from what it sounds like from the documentaries I happened to watch later - who seems he literally sacrificed his life to help his client he came to care about Doug. Rob Hall sounds like a remarkable soulful and caring person, ...too bad Krakauer doesn't really seem to even take notice of his final act of compassionate heroism ( despite Hall's mistakes as a guide)..
3 ) At times i got a bit mixed up near the end as the writing became disjointed- as to who was where and who was with who...
4) Although his assessments I think were correct, especially regarding Bukreev, he should still also reward his acts of heroism despite his terrible mistakes.He did save three people's lives and didn't even flinch as he waltzed up into that storm.
the good ? great critical assessments, great writing, thorough, thoughtful and a very objective account by a man who lived through it. Also i found he didn't bring his ego in to it and showed great- self objectivity as well.
It's a story you will never forget.
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