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

Updated March 6, 2023
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
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 : 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.
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 : the dark side of extreme adventure
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...
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 an adventure story of friendship and survival on Mount Rainier
Davidson, Jim.
CD
On June 21, 1992, two best friends summited Mount Rainier. Within hours, their exquisite accomplishment would be overshadowed by tragedy. On their descent, Jim Davidson fell through an ice bridge on Rainier's northeast flank, plunging eighty feet into a narrow crevasse inside the Emmons Glacier and...
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...
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 : 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
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?
Everyday survival : why smart people do stupid things
Gonzales, Laurence
Paper Book
Laurence Gonzales shows how modern society has made us lazy and susceptible to previously unknown threats. "Curiosity, awareness, attention," he writes. "Those are the tools of our everyday survival...we all must be scientists at heart or be victims of forces that we don't understand."Gonzales turns...
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.
K2, the savage mountain : the classic true story of disaster and survival on the world's second highest mountain
Houston, Charles S.
Paper Book
K2, the second highest peak in the world, is generally regarded as the most difficult and dangerous of all mountains. This is the dramatic story of the 1953 American expedition when a combination of terrible storms and illness stopped them short of the summit. Then on the descent, tragedy struck,...
The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone
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...
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...
Doctor on Everest : emergency medicine at the top of the world : a personal account including the 1996 disaster
Kamler, Kenneth.
Paper Book
Kamler has accompanied four expeditions to the highest mountain in the world, including the ill-fated 1996 attempt. He describes practicing trauma medicine at 27,000 feet and in freezing cold. He also offers climbers medical information based on his experience and that of others. Annotation...
After the wind : 1996 Everest tragedy : one survivor's story
Kasischke, Louis W.
Paper Book
In the spring of 1996, Lou Kasischke joined renowned climber Rob Hall's Mount Everest expedition. When he said goodbye to his wife, Sandy, he knew he faced major physical and mental challenges against rock, snow, ice, avalanches, and extreme high altitude to climb the highest mountain in the world....
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...
Near death in the mountains : true stories of disaster and survival
Kuhne, Cecil C., III
Paper Book
"He wrapped the rope around his body, got ready to rappel and leaned back. Standing about five feet from him, I heard a sharp scraping, Suddenly Ed was flying. I could see him fall, wordless, fifty feet free, then strike the steep ice below...he was sliding and bouncing down. He passed out of...
Above all else
Levy, Dana Alison
Paper Book
In a novel as riveting, irresistible, and heartbreaking as Into Thin Air, teen climbing prodigies Rose and Tate attempt to summit--and survive--Mount Everest. Rose Keller and Tate Russo have been climbing for years, training in harsh weather and traveling all over the...
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...
Miracle in the Andes [72 days on the mountain and my long trek home]
Parrado, Nando
Audiobook
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...
To the Mountain
Raschke, Erik
Paper Book
"A mercilessly taut, relentlessly thrilling tale of heartbreak and survival. Raschke writes with humanity and grace about the challenges of parenthood, and the rigors of the natural world." --JONATHAN EVISON, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving Eleven-year...
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 those ten weeks...
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
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 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...
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.
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 : 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...
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...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.