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

Updated March 6, 2023
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The lost explorer
Anker, Conrad.
Paper Book
In 1999, Conrad Anker found the body of George Mallory on Mount Everest, casting an entirely new light on the mystery of the lost explorer. On 8 June 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine were last seen climbing towards the summit of Everest. The clouds closed around them and they...
The climb : tragic ambitions on Everest
Boukreev, Anatoli.
Paper Book
Everest, the major motion picture from Universal Pictures, is set for wide release on September 18, 2015. Read The Climb, Anatoli Boukreev (portrayed by Ingvar Sigurðsson in the film) and G. Weston DeWalt's compelling account of those fateful events on Everest. In May...
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 : a true story of kidnap and escape in the mountains of Central Asia
Child, Greg.
Paper Book
The next Everest : surviving the mountain's deadliest day and finding the resilience to climb again
Davidson, Jim (Professional speaker)
Paper Book
Suspenseful and engrossing, The Next Everest portrays the experience of living through the biggest disaster to ever hit the mountain. Davidson's background in geology and environmental science makes him uniquely qualified to explain why the seismic threats lurking beneath Nepal are even greater...
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 death zone
Dickonson, Matt.
Paper Book
Ten expeditions were on Everest. They set out in perfect conditions on 10 May 1996. But twenty-four hours later, eight climbers were dead and a further three were to die. On the North Face, a British expedition found itself in the storm. Film-maker Matt Dickinson and climber Alan Hinkes battled...
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...
Climbing high : a woman's account of surviving the Everest tragedy
Gammelgaard, Lene
Paper Book
On May 10, 1996, Lene Gammelgaard became the first Scandinavian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. But a raging storm and human error conspired to turn triumph into catastrophe. Eight of her team's climbers, including its renowned leader Scott Fischer, perished in a tragedy that would make...
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?
Deep survival : who lives, who dies, and why : true stories of miraculous endurance and sudden death
Gonzales, Laurence
Paper Book
"Unique among survival books...stunning...enthralling. Deep Survival makes compelling, and chilling, reading." --Denver Post Laurence Gonzales's bestselling Deep Survival has helped save lives from the deepest wildernesses, just as it has improved readers'...
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
Foreword by Lachlan Murdoch “The day I summitted Mount Everest was the day I died” Lincoln Hall set off for Everest in early May 2006. Five weeks after reaching Base Camp in Tibet, he began his push for the summit. After three days of climbing higher into the oxygenless air, 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 ghosts of Everest : the authorised story of the search for Mallory and Irvine
Hemmleb, Jochen
Paper Book
K2, the savage mountain : the classic true story of disaster and survival on the world's second highest mountain
Houston, Charles S.
Paper Book
When eleven climbers died on K2 on August 1, 2008, it was a stark reminder that the world's second-highest mountain has, for more than a century, been regarded as the most difficult and dangerous of all-for every four people who reach the top, one dies in the attempt. K2, The Savage Mountain<...
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...
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...
The second death of George Mallory : the enigma and spirit of Mount Everest
Messner, Reinhold
Paper Book
When George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared in June 1924, during what would have been the first ascent to the top of Mount Everest, they left behind a seemingly unfathomable mystery. The discovery and identification of Mallory's body by an American-led team three-quarters of a century later...
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 : 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...
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...
Out of the silence : after the crash
Strauch Urioste, Eduardo
Paper Book
A personal story of survival, hope, and spiritual awakening in the face of unspeakable tragedy. It's the unfathomable modern legend that has become a testament to the resilience of the human spirit: the 1972 Andes plane crash and the Uruguayan rugby teammates who suffered seventy...
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...
K2 : life and death on the world's most dangerous mountain
Viesturs, Ed.
Paper Book
A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain, by the bestselling authors of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the TopEd Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers,...
Left for dead : my journey home from Everest
Weathers, Beck
Paper Book
With a new preface by the author * As featured in the upcoming motion picture Everest, starring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, and Jake Gyllenhaal   "I can tell you that some...
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.
The boys of Everest : the tragic story of climbing's greatest generation
Willis, Clint.
Paper Book
Telling the story of a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest's first ascent, this title presents a story of tremendous courage, astonishing achievement and heart-breaking loss.
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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