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

Updated March 6, 2023
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The lost explorer : finding Mallory on Mount Everest
Anker, Conrad.
Paper Book
This is the adventure story of the year--how Conrad Anker found the body of George Mallory on Mount Everest, casting an entirely new light on the mystery of the explorer who may have conquered Everest seventy-five years ago. Book jacket.
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 :
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.
Over the edge : the true story of four American climbers' kidnap and escape in the mountains of Central Asia
Child, Greg.
Paper Book
“The climbers swept up in the events of August 2000 are people little different from the rest of us. Though their climbing skills taught them a thing or two about survival, it was their individual characters and their compassion for one another that kept them alive. Like anyone who has...
Where the mountain casts its shadow :
Coffey, Maria,
Paper Book
Without risk, say mountaineers, there would be none of the self-knowledge that comes from pushing life to its extremes. For them, perhaps, it is worth the cost. But when tragedy strikes, what happens to the people left behind? Why would anyone choose to invest in a future with a high-altitude...
K2, triumph and tragedy
Curran, Jim.
Paper Book
K2, "the savage mountain", is the second-highest peak in the world - and the most difficult to cllimb. In 1986, it was the site of both dazzling triumph and great loss as twenty-seven men and women reached the top but thirteen died trying. Tto this day it ramains the single greatest tragedy in the...
The next Everest : surviving the mountain's deadliest day and finding the resilience to climb again
Davidson, Jim (Professional speaker)
Paper Book
One of Atlas & Boots' Top 10 Adventure Travel Books of 2021 A dramatic account of the deadly earthquake on Everest--and a return to reach the summit. On April 25, 2015, Jim Davidson was climbing Mount Everest when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake released...
The ledge :
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...
Climbing high : a woman's account of surviving the Everest tragedy
Gammelgaard, Lene
Paper Book
The first Danish woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest recounts herrueling and exhilarating experience, and her reaction to the news of herellow climbers' deaths.
Deep survival :
Gonzales, Laurence,
Paper Book
After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?
Deep survival : who lives, who dies, and why : true stories of miraculous endurance and sudden death
Gonzales, Laurence
Paper Book
After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?
Deep survival : who lives, who dies, and why : true stories of miraculous endurance and sudden death
Gonzales, Laurence
Paper Book
After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference? ...
Denali's howl : the deadliest climbing disaster on America's wildest peak
Hall, Andy.
Paper Book
Denali’s Howl is the white-knuckle account of one of the most deadly climbing disasters of all time. In 1967, twelve young men attempted to climb Alaska’s Mount McKinley—known to the locals as Denali—one of the most popular and deadly mountaineering...
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,...
Ghosts of Everest : the search for Mallory & Irvine : from the expedition that discovered Mallory's body
Hemmleb, Jochen
Paper Book
The dramatic account of the search for the bodies of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine on Everest.
The white death :
Jenkins, McKay,
Paper Book
The day after Christmas 1969, five robust young men set out to climb the imposing north face of Mount Cleveland in Glacier National Park. One of the highest vertical walls in the United States, the face had never before been scaled--and certainly not in winter, when it was bound with ice. But the...
After the wind : 1996 Everest tragedy : one survivor's story
Kasischke, Louis W.
Paper Book
May 10, 1996 is the date of the most historic tragedy in Mount Everest history. Eight climbers died. Lou Kasischke was there. He lived that story. The climbing events and the forces of nature were at the extreme, especially when things went wrong. The drama near the summit was high. But the...
Into thin air :
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...
Life and death on Mt. Everest : Sherpas and Himalayan mountaineering
Ortner, Sherry B.
Paper Book
The Sherpas were dead, two more victims of an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Members of a French climbing expedition, sensitive perhaps about leaving the bodies where they could not be recovered, rolled them off a steep mountain face. One body, however, crashed to a stop near Sherpas on a separate...
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 :
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...
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...
True summit : what really happened on the legendary ascent of Annapurna
Roberts, David
Paper Book
Fifty years after the event, Roberts examines the controversy surrounding Maurice Herzog's classic mountaineering book, "Annapurna", and discovers a richer and more dramatic story about the world's first ascent of an 8,000-meter peak. of photos.
Touching the void /
Simpson, Joe.
Paper Book
"A truly astounding account of suffering and fortitude." --The Times (London) 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...
Forever on the mountain :
Tabor, James M.
Paper Book
Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award Grand Prize Winner, Banff Mountain Book Festival "Forever on the Mountain grips even non-climbers with its harrowing scenes of thorny relationships tested by extraordinary circumstances." --Washington Post In...
K2 : life and death on the world's most dangerous mountain
Viesturs, Ed.
Paper Book
The deadly history of the world's most-dangerous mountain illuminates the many lessons both climbers and non-climbers alike can glean from K2, the aptly named Savage Mountain.
Left for dead :
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...
Addicted to danger : a memoir
Wickwire, Jim
Paper Book
A high-altitude mountaineer recounts his exploits among the world's highest peaks, including his climbing of K2, his terrifying rendezvous with death, and his addiction to danger.
The boys of Everest : Chris Bonington and the tragedy of climbing's greatest generation
Willis, Clint.
Paper Book
This book tells the story of a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest's first ascent. It is a story of tremendous courage, astonishing achievement and heart-breaking loss. Their leader was the boyish, fanatically driven Chris Bonington. His inner...
A bolt from the blue : the epic true story of danger, daring, and heroism at 13,000 feet
Woodlief, Jennifer.
Paper Book
From the author of A Wall of White, the thrilling account of a spectacular mountain rescue after six climbers are struck by lightning. FIVE INJURED CLIMBERS. TEN SEASONED RANGERS. ONE IMPOSSIBLE RESCUE. On the afternoon of July 26, 2003, six vacationing...
Buried in the sky : the extraordinary story of the Sherpa climbers on K2's deadliest day
Zuckerman, Peter.
Paper Book
When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world's most dangerous...

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