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 climb : tragic ambitions on Everest /
Boukreev, Anatoli
Paper Book
As the climbers of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster vanished into thin air, one man had the courage to bring them down alive... On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by expert leaders attempted to scale the world's largest peak. But things went terribly wrong....
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, 1952-
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 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...
Climbing high : a woman's account of surviving the Everest tragedy /
Gammelgaard, Lene, 1961-
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 endura
Gonzales, Laurence, 1947-
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 endura
Gonzales, Laurence, 1947-
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...
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 tells...
The last man on the mountain : the death of an American adventurer on K2 /
Jordan, Jennifer, 1958-
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...
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...
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
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...
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...
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 gen
Willis, Clint
Paper Book
Clint Willis's 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...
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.