My pick for #NonFictionNovember this year is Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer - a book about the Mt.Everest climbing tragedy that happened in 1996.
In this book, Krakauer subtly voices his opinions about rich people who pay their way up the mountain. Here is a comment he makes about famous socialite Sandy Hill Pittman who was climbing with them.
The weather deteriorated as the afternoon wore on.
Lopsang Jangbu, Fischer's sirdar, showed up bearing a back-wrenching eighty-pound load, some thirty pounds of which consisted of a satellite telephone and its peripheral hardware: Sandy Pittman was intending to file Internet dispatches from 26,000 feet.
~ Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Which makes me wonder, did the guides not have a weight limit imposed on their clients? Shouldn't they have warned their clients about carrying unnecessary luggage? Didn't Pittman herself not feel bad that she is making someone else carry so much luggage up a mountain? The mind boggles. And my heart goes out to these poor sherpas who have to do so much of the heavy lifting in expeditions such as this.
Have you read this book? I started it on Sunday, and read it non-stop. It's not often that a non-fiction reads so compelling.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
