Jon Krakauer has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 2 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 57 ratings. The most-rated is Into Thin Air.
Into Thin Air
Summary
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in 57 hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, 20 other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn't made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated. Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the best seller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, 35-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led 39 climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a 40-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996. Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people - including himself - to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.
©1997 Jon Krakauer (P)1997 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House Inc.
Under the Banner of Heaven
Summary
Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under the Banner of Heaven, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his audiobook is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief. Krakauer takes listeners inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.
©2003 Jon Krakauer (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Eiger Dreams
Summary
No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant hardships and victories more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger - always with a keen eye, an open heart, and a hunger for the ultimate experience.
©1997 Jon Krakauer (P)1997 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
The Moon
Summary
Look up into the sky on any cloudless night, and chances are you’ll see the Moon. Our glowing neighbor in space is as familiar to us as the Sun and the stars. You may even have imagined walking on its surface. But how much do you really know about the Moon? You may already know that the Moon is our planet’s only natural satellite, that it circles the Earth, and that we can watch it go through phases from round and full to thin like a sickle. But do you know how high you could jump on the Moon? Or what the Moon’s seas are made of? Or what would happen if we didn’t have the Moon? (Hint: Our days would be a lot shorter.) Or how about whether people will ever visit the Moon again? Listen on to find the answers to these fascinating questions and much more!
©2019 Mark Day (P)2019 Mark Day