Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains

A very good book about the passion of mountanering! By reading this book you achieve a very good undestanding of the passion for mountains and climbing. I bought this book in the sequence of having reed "In to Thin Air" from the same author and I was not disapointed after being delighted with the previous book.
Every mountanier should read it. Very good book!

This is a nice collection of stories decently told. While I enjoyed the book, the chapters (stories) had no unifying themes or characters, resulting in little attachment or sense of being there. By comparison, Touching the Void or Hermann Buhl: Climbing Without Compromise were both far more gripping.

Along with Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" and "Into Thin Air," "Eiger Dreams" is yet another masterpiece of mountaineering histories. In "Eiger Dreams," Krakauer describes 12 different tales of man's relations and interactions with the awesome power of massive mountains and cliffs like the Devil's Thumb and K2. In many of the chapters, Krakauer makes the reader shiver with the thought what the mountaineers are daring. Multiple times in the book, I glanced down to the floor and imagined it dropping hundreds, or even thousands of feet below me. In the chapter "Gill," I closed my eyes and tried to think of what it would feel like to be holding my entire body weight on my finger tips too far above the ground to survive a drop. This chapter intrigued me quite a bit more than some of the others. It astonished me how John Gill would allow his life to dangle on the thread of a string from a cliff. In one section, it discussed something called "squeeze holds." These are Holds that a climber uses to pull him or herself up with only by squeezing. I could not visualize what it may be to have such an experience. In most books that I read, some aspect of it irritates me one way or another, but this book did nothing of the sort. From cover to cover, the writing style was excellent and never caused me to think ill of his choices as an author. I rated this book with the golden 5 star prize for displaying an enthralling tale of laughter and suspense. Krakauer uses his writing talents in such a way that being the reader, I felt compelled to not only have a new found respect for the mountains and the elements, but to envision what these extraordinary men have done.

Jon Krakauer beautifully explains the human struggle to defy gravity and conquer mountains using examples and comparisons that don't take a mountain man to understand. Eiger Dreams is a collection of twelve short essays about mountaineering, canyoneering, climbing, and the people who do it.
I give this book a rating of five stars, because it is wonderfully written and gives the reader the feeling that they are actually walking in the boots of these world renowned athletes. It sends chills down my spine just reading about the precarious positions these people put themselves in, like climbing up a steep ice face, only clinging to the earth because of two metal picks stuck a half inch into a six inch layer of ice. Because this book is a collection of short stories, the reading is quite fast and is never tedious.

The book Eiger Dreams is very exciting and attention grabbing. The book is made up of articles written by Jon Krakauer that include some very interesting people and some intense first hand climbing experiences. Many of these climbers are classic fairy tale heroes or bedtime story characters. Krakauer captures your attention with laughable incidents or captivates you with near-death experiences. It is a must read for anybody who is crazy about mountain climbing.
This book does not have a plot. It is a book designed to entertain and enrapture, which it does very well. The clippings are not put together in any specific order it seems; they could be thrown anywhere in the book and it would be none the better or worse. The one thing that bugged me while reading the book was the title: Eiger Dreams. The author talks about how he tried to ascend the Eiger once, in the first chapter, and then never mentions it again. I think that a different title that refers to the articles as a whole would be more suiting.
The author's writing style is very good. He explains the important details of each character or incident, and he dwells on the events that either make your skin crawl or make laugh. The author also makes facts that would normally be boring and compares them to a different statistic or fact, which captures your attention as you learn something new. I really think that this author has some very good ideas and shows excellent knowledge of how to write a good book.
I really enjoyed reading about the climbers and mountaineers that Krakauer mentions in this book. My favorite people were, by far, the Burgess boys. These two classic English twins are every day heroes that children will dream of someday becoming. Despite having a knack for trouble, these handsome, witty young men can talk their way out of any situation, unless the situation involves fists. The Burgess boys have also pulled off some fairly amazing feats and have the respect of many authorities in the mountain climbing world. These twins are not the only interesting characters, though. You can read about a man who relies on shear finger and mind strength or explore any number of high-flying climbers (whether in a plane or on foot). The people of Eiger Dreams are figures who can be looked up to and dreamed about.
As I said before, this book is a must read for any person crazy about climbing or for someone who just wants to read something new and different. It will entertain you for the entire time you read it and something new will always be around the corner.