Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of Mt. Everest is a book written by Jon Krakauer. It is a non-fiction book published in 1997. It is a true-life experience of the author on his quest to climb the world’s highest Mountain, Mt. Everest. In his accounts, eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a rogue storm. The book has 416 pages and it is written in three languages: English, Chinese and Japanese.
Film rights for Into Thin Air were purchased by Sony almost immediately after the book’s publication. The book was adapted into the TV movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest in 1997. The book and the film contain the same strong editorial viewpoint regarding the fundamental causes of the tragedy. The film differs sharply from the book in details regarding responsibility. The 2015 film Everest, by Director Baltasar Kormakur, depicts the same event as the book, with actor Michael Kelly portraying Krakauer. According to the director, it is not based on Krakauer’s book.
In the book, Krakauer explains how he eventually decides to participate in an Everest expedition in May 1996. He had given up on mountain-climbing years before. The 1996 expedition season recorded 8 deaths, including that of Krakauer’s guide, Andy Harris. This was the third-highest recorded number of deaths on the mountain in a single day; the April 2015 Nepal earthquake caused the most at 21.
Krakauer was a journalist for the adventure magazine ‘Outside’. He said his initial intention to climb Everest was purely professional. The original magazine story was to have Krakauer climb only to base camp, and report on the commercialization of the mountain. The idea of Everest reawakened his childhood desire to climb the mountain. Krakauer asked his editor to put off the story for a year so that he could train for a climb to the summit. From there, the book moves between events that took place on the mountain and the unfolding tragedy that took place during the push to the summit. In the book, Krakauer alleges that essential safety methods adopted over the years by experienced guides on Everest are sometimes compromised by the competition between rival guiding agencies in order to get their clients to the summit.