I'm doing a report and presentation for school and I asked my professor if I could do it on this topic. he agreed so now I'm gathering resources. I'm researching books and wondering how many there are on this event. I have read Into Thin Air and hope to see the film soon. I also am buying the book, Doctor on Everest: Emergency Medicine at the Top of the World - A Personal Account of the 1996 Disaster.

Are there other good books, magazines, videos, that give a description of the account other than theses? Your help would be great!

I think just about everyone who was there has put out a book. I've read, Into Thin Air, Anatoli's and Beck Weathers. I know that Ed Viestures gives an account in his book.

Yeah I saw those two and didn't know if they were all about the event or just discussed in brief and then focused on other climbs. I'll check them out although I have heard Left for Dead is not a great book...I have to read it and see...

radson wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Sheer-Will-Michael-Groom/dp/0091841410

That's a lot of money for a book with a bad review. Did you read it? If so what stood out about it? (I don't mean to be rude or put you on the spot).

Tonka wrote:I think just about everyone who was there has put out a book.

Me too.

I picked up a copy of Lene Gamelgaard's book for cheap at a garage sale a couple weeks ago but haven't had a chance to read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-High-Account-Surviving-Everest/dp/B000C4SUME/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302806914&sr=8-1

Here are mine:



Boukreev, Anatoli and DeWalt, G. Weston: The Climb, St. Martin Press, New York, 1997.
Krakauer, Jon: Into Thin Air, Villard, New York, 1997.
Coburn, Broughton: Everest – Mountain without Mercy, MacGillivray Freeman Films, 1997.
Weathers, Beck: Left for Dead, Villard Books, New York, 2000.
Gammelgaard, Lene; Everest – Att besegra berget inom dig, Forum, Stockholm, 1996.
O’Dowd, Cathy and Woodall, Ian: Everest – Free to Decide, Zebra, Santon, 1997.
Lagercrantz, David: Göran Kropp 8000+, Bokförlaget DN, Stockholm, 1997.

Hotoven wrote:

radson wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Sheer-Will-Michael-Groom/dp/0091841410

That's a lot of money for a book with a bad review. Did you read it? If so what stood out about it? (I don't mean to be rude or put you on the spot).

It's cool, it's all about perspective. Groom wrote the book about his life, not specifically about Everest 96, so in my opinion, the review is a bit unfair. If you can get a hand on the book though, it does give a first person view of what actually happened to some members of Hall's group.

Hotoven wrote:...although I have heard Left for Dead is not a great book...I have to read it and see...

I just finished Left for Dead last week. Personally, I think it was a fantastic book. Just not necessarily a great book about the disaster. As for your project, the first 100 pages or so are all you would have to read, and it is a fast read. I thoroughly enjoyed his personal account of the events.

The rest of the book focuses primarily on his relationship with his wife and kids and the impact his climbing ambitions had on those relationships. That part of the story pretty much transcends mountaineering. Personally, I thought there were some excellent lessons in the story.

Beck Weather's humor alone makes it worth the read..."They said this trip was going to cost me an arm and a leg..."

Anatoli also wrote "Above the Clouds"

Of the accounts I've read, I thought Boukreev's "The Climb" was the best. The perspective of a professional climber who was in the thick of everything is great.

radson wrote:

Hotoven wrote:

radson wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Sheer-Will-Michael-Groom/dp/0091841410

That's a lot of money for a book with a bad review. Did you read it? If so what stood out about it? (I don't mean to be rude or put you on the spot).

It's cool, it's all about perspective. Groom wrote the book about his life, not specifically about Everest 96, so in my opinion, the review is a bit unfair. If you can get a hand on the book though, it does give a first person view of what actually happened to some members of Hall's group.

The chapter on 1996 was whacked on to the end of the autobiography that Groom had already written, about his quest to climb the five-highest peaks without supplemental O2, which at the time very few people had done. When that chapter was actually written, it was still too soon after the event for everybody involved to truly understand what had happened. This was even more the case for Krakauer, who had to publish his book very soon after the event, and suffered because of it (the Andy Harris mix-up etc). I don't know Groom personally, but from friends that do, and from everything I have seen him in, he is a very quiet person and would not be keen to pass judgements in public/print on such a complicated and sensitive issue.

Distant onlookers see such scenes as more coherent and contained than they really are, when in fact they're usually an uncontrolled mess of individuals with little internal communication. It took years for all the books to be published, the movies to be made, and only once all those things came out, and everybody got to finally see what all the others thought and did, that any kind of real understanding became possible. People realised that they were wrong about certain 'facts' that they remembered. They got to see the various mini-situations that were happening near them from the perspective of those that were actually in them. Big difference. So it took years to finally see the event from all sides, and with the clarity of understanding that comes with some distance.

Recently here in Australia on weekend midday tv there was the doco, made by Breashears some years later, that interviewed many of the surviving participants. It gives a better idea of the different experiences and perspectives of those involved, with Weather's laying out the timeline of his ordeal etc. The recollections of other, lesser-known, players like Kasischke etc, are interesting, as are the intermeshing memories of Fox and Hill.

Above the Clouds was written after Anatoli died, good read.

Freddie Wiklinson's book on the 2008 K2 tragedy ,"One Mountain Thousand Summits:....." provides the best insight into the contemporary Himalayan professional climbing scene that I've read .His interviews with Sherpas who have guided the competing national teams are particularly interesting.