Books

Reading has recently rekindled into my life through the absence of a television in my apartment bedroom (by choice might I add).  However, I will admit to the terrible notion that I needed to bar a TV from my room in order to read more, it is slightly pathetic on my part.  Anyways, here are some books that really spoke to me and some brief descriptions of each one.  Please feel free to comment, preferably after reading some of the text. Enjoy!



Between a Rock and a Hard Place, by Aaron Ralston

I did not really plan on reading this book until I met Mr. Ralston when he came to Penn State Behrend as a guest speaker.  I had the fortunate pleasure of sitting next to him during dinner before he spoke to an audience that well exceeded the fire safety regulation for our main hall. I met him before I read the book (mistake!) and even before that it was truly an incredible experience.  I was not expecting a mechanical engineer that graduated from Carnegie Mellon to speak so brilliantly! He re-told his story in immaculate detail, and every time he spoke you could tell that he was speaking without bull-shit and was extremely sincere.  After reading the book, my respect for the man quadrupled.  The book told tales of amazing adventures that I had to sometimes re-read just to ensure myself of what I read.  Aaron has led a life not lived by most that is for sure.  Extremely well written piece though, again not what I was expecting.  I would even go so far to say that it was written in more detail than some of Jon Krakauer's work. I would love to see another book published by him as he has led a very active life even after his accident and still currently holds the record for climbing all the peaks in Colorado over 14,000 feet during winter, solo. This is a truly amazing feat, and a record I am sure will hold up for quite a while.  It is nerve racking enough to do solo backpacking trips, imagining climbing a mountain in the dead of winter in very desolate places is astounding.  Ralston has since married after his accident and has just entered the next chapter in his life, fatherhood. A remarkable story about a remarkable man, please consider reading.

Kayaking the Vermillion Sea, by Jonathan Waterman

Talk about a book written in detail. Wow.  This book single-handily convinced me to invest in a kayak and learn the art that is kayaking just based off of Waterman's experience with his wife down the Baja California on the west coast of Mexico.  This 800-mile journey is more than just a kayaking adventure set off by an older couple looking for a little more out of life than the average admirer, it launches into some truly remarkable corruption problems that are happening in Mexico and the United States.  This book is written in almost a journalistic style because it opened my eyes to so much that is happening to the environment in general, not just the Baja.  I was glued to every single page in this book, and it is a fantastic read even for the avid kayaker, it taught me a lot.




Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer


Hands down one of the best mountaineering books ever written.  This book portrays the 1996 disaster when eight climbers lost their lives way up high on Everest when a storm came in unexpected.  Krakauer found himself right in the thick of things as he was originally there for a magazine climbing the mountain for an expose, but what transpired led him to write one of the most popular mountaineering book to date.  The tale is told in a very modern lingo and the pages of this book just melt away.  This (in my eyes) is one of the best works of journalism to come out in recent years just because of the difficulty of climbing Everest to begin with, then to record and interview an immense amount of people while trying to put together a very complex puzzle.  In the thin air judgement becomes compromised, the memory does not work as well, the body is eating itself to stay alive, these are all factors that go into a disaster.  At the same time these are all factors that prevent a truly accurate account to be told.  Of the many books written about this infamous season, Krakauer's account is a very objective and well written one.  Definitely worth the read.









K2: Life and Death and the World's Most Deadliest Mountain, by Ed Viesturs


Reading this book made me realize truly how dangerous mountaineering is.  Reading books about Everest quickly makes one realize that climbing the highest mountain in the world is quickly turning into a tourist attraction where clients can all but buy their way to the top.  No nark on those who do climb the mountain because the good lord knows I would never be able to get to the top, but it is definitely not what it used to be. Climbing K2 is a truly daunting task filled with an immense more risk and technical sections.  House's chimney is a vertical 100-foot gash that is famous for the technical talent that the American William House first climbed in 1938 over the course of 2.5 hours.  There is also a very intimidating section where a giant ice serac that hangs above a natural bottleneck in the rock.  Author Ed Viesturs nicknames this enormous serac as "the motivator."  It was this serac that fell partially and caused the disaster that occurred in 2008 when 11 climbers lost their lives.  Viesturs is an extremely reputable climber who is one of the few who have climbed all fourteen 8000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen.  It took him 18 years which he completed in 2005.








The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman

This book had me by its tittle.  After I figured out how to pronounce the tittle and started reading through this fictional book about a world newspaper based in Italy, I realized how ingenious the whole novel is.  The author, Tom Rachman, tells individual accounts of each member of the newsroom and develops the characters through events that he puts these characters in.  Then he pulls them altogether and keeps the reader in the present through italicized notes placed in between chapters. Being an editor at my college newspaper, this novel really struck an interest and drew eerie similarities to the characters that I work with at The Behrend Beacon.  The book also explains how technology transpired the journalism world and how it effects the entire industry.  Read this book with an open mind and learn to truly appreciate the talent that this young Canadian author brought to the table in his debut book.  A must read for any person who has ever worked at or around a newspaper because there is a character in this book that can be related to virtually everyone in the industry.  Bravo Tom.
































A Golfer's Life, by Arnold Palmer
Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print, edited by David Wallis
Are You Kidding Me? by Rocco Mediate and John Feinstein
A Good Walk Spoiled, by John Feinstein
Tales from Q-School, by John Feinstein
K2: The Savage Mountain
Sway
American Hero