Best first-hand accounts


I wrote my Master's thesis on the first-hand accounts of the 1996 Everest climbing season. I'm curious what other books and documentaries other Everest and climbing enthusiasts would recommend.

I've read/viewed:

Mountain Madness - Robert Birkby
Above the Clouds - Anatoli Boukreev
The Climb - Anatoli Boukreev & G. Weston DeWalt
High Exposure - David Breashears
IMAX Everest - David Breashears, director
The Death Zone (republished as The Other Side of Everest) - Matt Dickinson
Climbing High - Lene Gammelgaard
"Into Thin Air" (Outside) - Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
Doctor on Everest - Kenneth Kamler
Eyewitness Everest - Jon E. Lewis, editor
Touching My Father's Soul - Jamling Tenzing Norgay
Life & Death on Mt. Everest - Sherry B. Ortner
Storm over Everest - David Breashears, director
"Return to Thin Air: Everest '96 Revisited" (Outside) - Mary Turner
No Shortcuts to the Top - Ed Viesturs
Left for Dead - Seaborn Beck Weathers
High Life: A History of High-Altitude Physiology and Medicine - John B. West

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Any suggestions?

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It looks like you've gotten mostly everything (if not all) from the Everest 1996 disaster. If you're looking to expand your horizons beyond that particular mountain climbing incident, may I suggest:

Anything by Joe Simpson, but especially Touching the Void and The Beckoning Silence. Joe got me into reading about mountaineering and his story from Touching the Void is nothing more than inspirational and amazing.
Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer
The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer
Dead Lucky by Lincoln Hall (Hall nearly died in 2006 on Everest)
Dark Summit by Nick Heil (explains, and rather defends, Russell Brice and his team's actions concerning the controversy of David Sharp's death in 2006)
No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs (arguably one of the best mountaineers in history, and who is the first and only American to summit all 14 8,000 meter peaks)
K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs (a good intro into the history of K2 if you don't know much about it)


Again, these aren't all first-hand accounts (although most of them are) and they're not all about Everest, so I apologize if that's not what you were looking for.

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Thanks mate!

I have Ed Viesturs's book on my list there, and I've read Simpson's Touching the Void (and have seen the documentary). Mike Groom's book is the one I am looking for now. Haven't found it in paperback yet.

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[deleted]

Ghosts of Everest.

Is your thesis online?

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