Another enjoyable read from NetGalley -- a collection of Jon Krakauer articles from the 1990s from a variety of publications. The topics vary widely - mostly outdoors, mostly men and seem to focus on the risk of death from the power of nature. "Mark Foo's Last Ride" is about the death of a legendary and accomplished surfer at Mavericks; followed by a tale of the risks of living near active volcanos from debris flows (forget about lava eruptions; the inequality and risk on Mt Everest; stories of deaths of participants in the hands of outdoor guides -- both climbing and at-risk-youth programs. The only two stories that don't talk about actual deaths are the story of a search for rock-eating bacteria during a warm, sticky underground caving campout; a profile of a cantankerous 70 year old Alpinist, and an Arctic backpacking trip.
The stories all feature Krakauer's distinctive, descriptive prose style -- though I find the word Brobdingnagian a bit over-used -- it was a thoroughly enjoyable collection of articles. One change I might make would be to provide more context at the beginning of each chapter since they often refer to time points in the past without reference to the publication date (so "nine years ago" is really 34 years ago!).
REVIEW: Classic Krakauer: After the Fall, Mark Foo's Last Ride and Other Essays from the Vault by Jon Krakauer
RATING: 3-stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.
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