K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

Author is one of the 20 or so men who climbed all 14 8000m peaks. Obviously, this is someone knows the business of climbing. Fairly thorough account of the history of climbing K2, of course, with an American angle.

A great quick read. Although not a definitive history of K2 the stories were well chosen and entertaining. Viesturs does a good job of intermingling personal experiences and opinions among the anecdotes. At times he does seem judgmental at the same time scorning the judgments of others. All in all it was a good book that captivated me. You could do much much worse.

If you like Ed Viesturs' writing style and perspective, then you'll like this book. He evaluates several different tradegy-ridden expeditions and presents his own thoughts on what may have went wrong. I like how he presents his research findings and combines it with his own experience to make very logical arguments. I think I may actually start reading some of the books he references as they...more

If you like Ed Viesturs' writing style and perspective, then you'll like this book. He evaluates several different tradegy-ridden expeditions and presents his own thoughts on what may have went wrong. I like how he presents his research findings and combines it with his own experience to make very logical arguments. I think I may actually start reading some of the books he references as they also sound interesting. I wish there were more images and pictures displaying the different routes and also the locations on the mountain where the tragedies occurred. I feel that this would have helped my understanding of the various situations a little more and it would have allowed me to visualize myself in the same situations as the climbers described in the book.   hide