Want to write a book about facing death? Climb a mountain!

Updated March 6, 2023
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The last season
Blehm, Eric.
Paper Book
Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada--mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work...
The climb : tragic ambitions on Everest
Boukreev, Anatoli.
Paper Book
In May 1996, two commercial expedition groups attempted to ascend Mount Everest. Each group contained world class climbers and relative novices, some of whom had paid tens of thousands of pounds for the climb. But as the climbers neared the summit, they were overtaken by intense snow and wind, and...
High exposure : an enduring passion for Everest and unforgiving places
Breashears, David.
Paper Book
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge.
Last climb : the legendary Everest expeditions of George Mallory
Breashears, David.
Paper Book
Describes Mallory's final expedition to Mount Everest in 1924, the mystery surrounding his disappearance, and the discovery of his remains in 1999.
The ledge : an adventure story of friendship and survival on Mount Rainier
Davidson, Jim.
Paper Book
"My eyes travel up the frozen walls. I figure it is eighty feet up to the sunlight. The walls above me climb up at about eighty degrees, then they go dead vertical, and then, higher up, they overhang. It is as if I am looking out from the belly of a beast, its jagged white teeth interlocking...
The other side of Everest : climbing the north face through the killer storm
Dickinson, Matt.
Paper Book
May 1996 began like most other climbing seasons on Mount Everest. The arrival of spring brought the usual pre-monsoon period, with teams of hopeful mountaineers ready to reach for the roof of the world. Among the dozens of climbers were Jon Krakauer and Anatoli Boukreev (who would both later write...
Dead Mountain : the untold true story of the Dyatlov Pass incident
Eichar, Donnie
Paper Book
A New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller - What happened that night on Dead Mountain? The mystery of Dead Mountain: In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects...
Dead lucky : life after death on Mount Everest
Hall, Lincoln
Paper Book
Lincoln Hall's breathtaking account of surviving a night in Everest's "death zone." Lincoln Hall likes to say that on the evening of May 25, 2006, he died on Everest. Indeed, Hall attempted to climb the mountain during a deadly season in which eleven people perished. And he was,...
The white spider : the classic account of the ascent of the Eiger
Harrer, Heinrich
Paper Book
The White Spider dramatically recreates not only the harrowing, successful ascent made by Harrer and his comrades in 1938, but also the previous, tragic attempts at a wall of rock that was recently enshrined in mountaineer Jon Krakauer's first work, Eiger Dreams. For a generation of American...
The hill : a true story of tragedy, recovery, and redemption on North America's highest peak
Hommer, Ed.
Paper Book
Chronicles the plane crash that left the author, and pilot of the plane, without his lower legs, documenting the changes in his life and relationships, and his eventual success in reaching the summit of Mount McKinley.
The last man on the mountain : the death of an American adventurer on K2
Jordan, Jennifer
Paper Book
In 1939 the Savage Mountain claimed its first victim. Born into vast wealth yet uneasy with a life of leisure, Dudley Wolfe, of Boston and Rockport, Maine, set out to become the first man to climb K2, the world's second-highest mountain and, in the opinion of mountaineers, an even more formidable...
Facing the extreme : one woman's story of true courage, death-defying survival, and her quest for the summit
Kocour, Ruth Anne.
Paper Book
She stepped into a death zone. The climbers on Alaska's Mt. McKinley called her "the woman." Ruth Anne Kocour, a world-class mountaineer, wasn't bothered. It was part of the challenge she faced as she joined an all-male team to conquer North America's highest peak...the mountain the Indians...
Into thin air : a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster
Krakauer, Jon.
Paper Book
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...
Between a rock and a hard place
Ralston, Aron.
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND BASIS FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE 127 HOURS One of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told--Aron Ralston's searing account of his six days trapped in one of the most remote spots in America, and how one inspired act of...
Alive : sixteen men, seventy-two days, and insurmountable odds-- the classic adventure of survival in the Andes
Read, Piers Paul
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller "No one will come away unmoved by the book, and no one will be able to put it down.... There is no way of reading Alive without a heightened sense of one's own life and its value." -- New Republic Sixteen Men, Seventy-Two Days, and...
Alive; the story of the Andes survivors
Read, Piers Paul
Paper Book
"A classic in the literature of survival." --Newsweek On October 12, 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying a team of rugby players crashed in the remote, snow-peaked Andes Mountains. Ten weeks later, only 16 of the 45 passengers were found alive. This is the story of...
Touching the void
Simpson, Joe
Paper Book
Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his...
Forever on the mountain : the truth behind one of mountaineering's most controversial and mysterious disasters
Tabor, James M.
Paper Book
In July 1967, seven young men--members of Joe Wilcox's twelve-man expedition--died on Mt. McKinley, North America's highest peak. Ten days passed with no rescue attempt, while more than half an expedition was stranded and dying at 20,000 feet during a vicious Arctic storm. The...
Left for dead : my journey home from Everest
Weathers, Beck.
Paper Book
I am neither churchly nor a particularly spiritual person, but I can tell you that some force within me rejected death at the last moment and then guided me, blind and stumbling—quite literally a dead man walking—into camp and the shaky start of my return to life. On May 10, 1996, nine...
One mountain thousand summits : the untold story of tragedy and true heroism on K2
Wilkinson, Freddie.
Paper Book
In the early-morning hours of August 1, 2008, more than two dozen men readied in the starry darkness for their final ascent to the summit of K2, the world's second-highest mountain.

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