Book Report...

[RuMR]

Just read Last Breath...

 

couldn't sleep last night...weird weird book...makes one think...

[Winter]

Excellent book report. Is that like the Cliff Notes version?

[rmncwrtr]

RuMR's post sent me to google. Here's a slightly longer review taken from Amazon:

 

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Prepare to have some of your greatest fears laid bare in this collection of riveting, and often terrifying, "cautionary tales from the limits of human endurance." Based on interviews with accident survivors and the medical specialists who treat them, veteran outdoor writer Peter Stark offers mostly fictitious accounts (there is one based on a true historical incident) of people caught in life-threatening situations. In Last Breath, he thoroughly explores what happens to the human body and mind during drowning, a long fall, burial beneath an avalanche, hypothermia, dehydration, mountain sickness, the bends, malaria, scurvy, hyperthermia, and contact with a poisonous jellyfish. Stark packs enough historic and scientific information and page-turning suspense into each chapter to make them all fascinating and useful. And he answers some perplexing questions in the process, such as why those suffering from acute hypothermia often rip off their clothing in an effort to save themselves.

 

No, Stark does not have some unresolved death wish--he readily admits that he fears death. But he also understands that the fine line between life and death actually entices outdoor adventurers to risk everything for the chance to explore their own physical and mental limits. In fact, it is exactly this close proximity to death that makes the experience come alive for certain individuals with the overriding desire "to strip away the superfluous, to remove the protective boundaries between that thing you call a self and something larger." These are the stories of those who crossed the line. --Shawn Carkonen

 

[Kraken]

Not so much a climbing book as a look at a person who lived a life involving mountains and climbing.

 

Good Morning Midnight by Chip Brown, it's about Guy Waterman, the father of John Waterman. Check it out. If you haven't heard of John Waterman, google him...he was an interesting fellow.

 

Guy Waterman though, walked up to a mountain one night with a death wish. He laid down behind a rock and gave in to the elements. Really interesting book. Check it out.