Why am I passionate about this?
I have hiked mountains in North Korea, slept outside in the Sahara Desert, ridden elephants in Thailand, dogsledded across the Arctic Circle, ridden camels through the Gobi Desert, floated in the Dead Sea, run with the bulls in Spain, hang glided over New Zealand, explored the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam, visited Buddhist temples in South Korea, and caught a glimpse of Nessie while on a boat ride around Loch Ness. I’ve spent most of my career working with the military. I also accepted a presidential appointment at the White House and served as an undercover officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Grace's book list on appreciating common comforts
Why did Grace love this book?
Into Thin Air was the first book that I ever had a physical reaction to. I can still remember reading the book, and my jaw dropped as I read about Beck Weathers walking into camp after he was left to die.
No book has ever evoked such a physical reaction from me. I literally could not put this book down. I first read Into Thin Air over twenty years ago and have read it several more times since. Out of the hundreds of books I’ve read in my lifetime, this is one of the few that have stayed with me for decades. I cannot fathom being in a situation where I would have to make the decision of whether or not to leave someone to die.
16 authors picked Into Thin Air as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray.
"A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE
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.
By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons…