Krakauer was sent to Everest by a magazine to write about the commercialization of the mountain and summited on May 10, 1996, the day a storm caught multiple teams high on the peak. Eight people died that day, including both lead guides. He wrote the book fast, partly out of the wreckage of his own account, and it is unsparing about the guides, the clients, the oxygen, the fixed ropes, the decisions made above eight thousand meters by people whose brains weren’t working. Other survivors dispute parts of it, loudly and in print, which is worth knowing. It remains the reason most people know anything about Everest.
Into Thin Air