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Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.Into the Wild is available on audio, read by actor Campbell Scott.From the Hardcover edition.

Jon Krakauer (Author), Jon Krakauer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Eiger Dreams

No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant victories and hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest essays and reporting, Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo madness to scale Alaska's notorious Devils Thumb. In Pakistan, the fearsome K2 kills thirteen of the world's most experienced mountain climbers in one horrific summer. In Valdez, Alaska, two men scale a frozen waterfall over a four-hundred-foot drop. In France, a hip international crowd of rock climbers, bungee jumpers, and paragliders figure out new ways to risk their lives on the towering peaks of Mont Blanc. Why do they do it? How do they do it? In this extraordinary book, Krakauer presents an unusual fraternity of daredevils, athletes, and misfits stretching the limits of the possible. From the paranoid confines of a snowbound tent, to the thunderous, suffocating terror of a white-out on Mount McKinley, Eiger Dreams spins tales of driven lives, sudden deaths, and incredible victories. This is a stirring, vivid book about one of the most compelling and dangerous of all human pursuits. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Jon Krakauer (Author), Jon Krakauer (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Journey to Consciousness

Hitchhiking from London to the extreme desert of Southern India, Alan Lithman followed his calling, merging his 1960s activism with his spiritual hunger, to join the international community of Auroville. Letting his old spiritual beliefs of 'transcendence' go, Lithman embraced 'transformation', which is described by Sri Aurobindo as an evolution of consciousness that continually reveals itself in matter and the body.

Alan Lithman (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook

River Horse: A Voyage Across America

In this abridgement of River-Horse, the pre-eminent chronicler of American back roads -- who has given us the classics Blue Highways and Prairyerth -- recounts his singular voyage through American waters from sea to sea. Along the route, he offers a lyrical and ceaselessly fascinating shipboard perspective on the country and its rivers, lakes, canals, and landscapes. Brimming with history, drama, and wisdom, River-Horse belongs in the pantheon of American travel literature. In his most ambitious journey ever, Heat-Moon sets off aboard a small boat he named Nikawa (""river horse"" in Osage) from the Atlantic at New York Harbor in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon. He and his companion, Pilotis, struggle to cover some five thousand watery miles -- more than any other cross-country river traveler has ever managed -- often following in the wakes of our most famous explores, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark. En route, the voyagers confront massive floods, submerged rocks, dangerous weather, and their own doubts about whether they can complete the trip. But the hard days yield up incomparable pleasures: strangers generous with help and eccentric tales, landscapes unchanged since Sacagawea saw them, riverscapes flowing with a lively past, and the growing belief that efforts to protect our lands and waters are beginning to pay off. And, throughout its course, the expedition enjoys coincidences so breathtaking as to suggest the intervention of a divine and witty Providence. Teeming with humanity and high adventure, Heat-Moon's account is an unsentimental and original arteriogram of our nation at the edge of the Millennium.

William Heat-Moon, William Least Heat-Moon (Author), Jay O. Sanders, William Least Heat-Moon (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Grand Canyon

If you have never ridden a mule along a 48-inch wide trail whose ledge drops off, in places, 700 feet to the Colorado River, straight down, you may have difficulty picturing the temporary insanity that leads otherwise responsible adults to sign away the remainder of their natural life expectancy just for the chance to see the Grand Canyon's natural beauty close-up. Listening to Donald Davis, you won't have any trouble visualizing it: the gleeful anticipation, the encounter with the psyche of 'your own, personal mule', and the first-hand experience of a natural wonder. Davis interweaves his humor around vivid details of perhaps the most remarkable experience offered by an American national park. ©1998 Donald Davis, Storyteller, Inc.; (P)1998 August House Publishers, Inc.

Donald Davis (Author), Donald Davis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Charles Kuralt's American Moments

Charles Kuralt is a national treasure, a reporter and man of the world who was to many the real and true voice of America. For more than thirty-five years, he delighted us with his On the Road reports, as an anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, and with bestselling books that include On the Road with Charles Kuralt and Charles Kuralt's America. As Time magazine wrote, he was "the laureate of the common man." The project that Kuralt was working on when he died was An American Moment with Charles Kuralt, a series of brief television essays about the people, places, and ideas that define the national spirit: the man who handcrafts the President's shoes; the origin of buffalo wings; Paul Bunyan's hometown of Bemidji, Minnesota; the Pony Express Museum; Pike Place Market in Seattle; Ferris wheels; and more. A collection of enchanting and sometimes touching stories that brings back Charles Kuralt's distinctive voice, Charles Kuralt's American Moments celebrates the quintessential American character and traditions that he so loved.

Charles Kuralt (Author), Charles Kuralt (Narrator)

Audiobook

Charles Kuralt's America

All New Journeys From The New York Times Bestselling Author Of A Life On The Road I keep thinking I will find something wonderful just around the bend. Ever since October 1967, when he set off in a battered motor home to explore America and talk to its people, Charles Kuralt has been one of our premier chroniclers -- a man who has helped us see and celebrate our country in a way we never had before. After retiring from CBS News in 1994, he set out to spend a perfect year in America -- traveling to his twelve favorite American places, in just the right month for a visit to each. With his well-known warmth, humor and insight, he shows them to us now in Charles Kuralt's America. From Montana in September and Alaska in June to winter in Cajun country and the North Carolina mountains in spring, Kuralt's accounts are filled with people, stories and experiences. Suffused by a poet's love of language and rich in the spirit and flavor of this infinite and varied land, Charles Kuralt's America is, like its author, a national treasure.

Charles Kuralt (Author), Charles Kuralt (Narrator)

Audiobook

Pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca-Excerpts

In the 19th century, Sir Richard Francis Burton-Oxford-educated spy and adventurer-became the first Englishman to enter the Muslim city of Mecca. Disguised as a dervish, Burton braved the harsh desert climate, Bedouin bandits, and the scrutiny of Muslim travelers to reach the forbidden city. He recorded his experiences in this book, a fascinating adventure of unique anthropological significance.

Richard Burton, Richard Francis Burton (Author), Patrick Tull (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stranger in the Forest

Outfitted with a pair of ratty sand shoes and a knapsack full of trade goods, Eric Hansen set off to cross the rainforest of Borneo, one of the last places on earth largely untouched by Western civilization. For seven months Hansen hunted wild pig, gathered roots, and lived among tribes whose longhouses were still decorated with the headhunting swords of their ancestors, completing one of the great adventures of our time.

Eric Hansen (Author), Richard Poe (Narrator)

Audiobook

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