Krakauer's Pat Tillman book

Air's a little intimidating at first though, 900 or so pages. I started with Wild and then did the other ones. Heaven was fascinating, but then religion and the crazy stuff people do when they interpret it in an extreme way has always fascinated me.

 

At the very least, read the original Outside Magazine piece that became Into Thin Air, which is in the BASW 1996, I believe.

 

I just picked it up at Costco for $20, looking forward to starting on it this evening.

 

Isn't there a theory Tillman was intentionally killed?

 

Where are you guys getting the 900-page Into Thin Air? I can't find my copy right now but I thought it was about the same length as Under the Banner of Heaven. And online it says the paperback was 432 and the hardcover 320. Don't wanna frighten away someone from reading it with an Infinite Jest-esque length.

 

Yeah, Into Thin Air never struck me as a particularly long book.

 

Definitely picking this one up. I may get "Into the Wild" at the same time, as that's one of those books I've always meant to read but haven't gotten around to.

I was a student at ASU when Tillman was killed. I still remember the reaction on campus. I also remember that the fact that he'd probably been killed by friendly fire was noted pretty quickly in some quarters, and that it was vigorously shouted down for quite some time. Very sad event, very disturbing aftermath. Hopefully this will provide some clarity to the whole mess.

 

Yeah, it's out there, and the evidence makes it tough to simply laugh that theory off:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/27/national/main3104125.shtml

 

Yeah, that's my mistake ... Into Thin Air is 332 pages. I recently read another long book by Stephen King and mixed up the two.

 

I hate to bust you here, Inky, but Krakauer published Into the Wild in 1996, prior to Into Thin Air in 1997. (Eiger Dreams preceded both in 1990, and Under the Banner of Heaven followed in 2003.)

The original magazine feature Into Thin Air is available here ... http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/199609/199609_into_thin_air_1.html. It also leads off Best American Sports Writing 1997 and is included in Best American Sports Writing of the Century.

The original magazine feature Into the Wild is available here ... http://outside.away.com/outside/features/1993/1993_into_the_wild_1.html

Other Outside features by Krakauer are available here ... http://outside.away.com/outside/search-results.html?cx=partner-pub-8213526369189339:gv97wd794vk&cof=FORID:10&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=krakauer&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&sa=submit

 

Hmm, I could have sworn Air was first. Oh well, my bad.

 

Good link. I was able to find a story I read a few years ago in Outside - The Coldest War - the battle on top of K2 between Pakistan and India.

Worth a read:

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200302/200302_siachen_1.html