Into Thin Air A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster

I rarely dabble in non-fiction, but when I do, I often get surprised at how good some of the books in this genre are. ''Into Thin Air'' is no exception. The story that is told within these pages is sometimes as thrilling as it is scary, it almost feels like a fictional body of work that one day just arose from Jon Krakauer's mind. Alas, it is not, and so the element of real, tangible tragedy carries through the entirety of the book. ''Into Thin Air'' details the ill-fated Mount Everest Expedition of 1996, one of the deadliest seasons in the history of mountaineering. Jon Krakauer, who himself was there and miraculously survived, tells the full, unfiltered story and does not shy away from revealing the circumstances around the deaths of some his teammates. Throughout this book you will question why people risk their lives trying to tame the nearly untamable, and by the end of it you will have an answer. ''Into Thin Air'' reads like a cautionary tale about hubris, it is gripping and captivating and absolutely worth your time.