This weekend is the Wisconsin Book Festival, with myriad events a bookish person like myself could attend, except I probably won't. My time on weekends is achingly precious, and Monday morning comes all too soon. Sunday's booked with a summer camp board meeting and a going away party for friends who are moving to New Zealand, which leaves Saturday for the bare necessities of housework, family, and maybe a little self-care.You're probably wondering what any of this has to do with Jon Krakauer.
Well, a number of years ago I organized a book club. I invited all of the cool women I knew with whom I wanted to spend time, but never seemed to make time for. It was a great group of women. We met regularly every month, read interesting books which we loved or hated, and enjoyed each other's company.
It was all going swimmingly, until we read Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, a gripping account of the most deadly climbing season ever on Mount Everest, in 1996. Oh, we loved the book! All of us did. We couldn't put it down. One friend, a second grade teacher, assigned her students an extra long independent reading period so she could finish it. Our next meeting was animated. At the end we selected a new book to read for the following month.
When we met next, we tried, we really tried, to discuss the new book. (I think it might have been The Poisonwood Bible, which I've enjoyed reading twice now.) We gave it a good 10 minutes. Then someone said, "Did anyone hear the program on NPR where they interviewed that doctor who lost his nose to frostbite on that Everest expedition?" (We all knew which Everest expedition ...) and we were off! An hour and a half of discussing Into Thin Air, again.
Somewhat sheepishly, we selected another new book. Damn, if the same thing didn't happen the next month, and the next! We tried to make light of it: "We're the Into Thin Air book club, ha ha." But in the end we couldn't sustain it, and we made our fond farewells.
I'm still friends with each of those women, and periodically, when I see one or another of them the subject of our book club will come up, and we have a good laugh.
I've never belonged to another book club with any success. Thanks, Jon.
7 comments:
What do you think kept bringing your book club back to Krakauers book, to that topic?
Good Question. I think the combination of the story, with its many human angles, and Krakauer's excellent writing made it really compelling. Have you read the book? Ed's dad said he couldn't get warm for a week after reading it. Also, it was relatively current when we read it, so there were new stories in the media related to it quite frequently. It was also told in the first person: Krakauer was there, part of one of the expeditions involved.
Incidentally, most of the people involved sounded like rich jerks. The person who shone through as a real hero was David Brasheers and his team who were making the IMAX film about Everest. They dropped everything and put all of their people and equipment at the rescuers' disposal, while other climbers refused to help because it would jeopardize their getting to the summit.
No, but Poodledoc,jr read it and liked it. I heard Krakauer ended up getting sued. Is that true? Was it over the book or something else? Yes, I think lots of rich jerks climb Everest "because they can", to paraphrase Sir Edmund.
great post! guess my book club won't read it. I remember actually seeing the IMAX film. And there was this one poignant moment of this guide who knew he was going to die and who called his wife...I think I need to read it again.
so, did he get sued?
I loved this book club of ours.... I haven't been in any since either. Maybe it's time to try again. Or maybe we should have a re-reading reunion meeting! Fay
a note to poodledoc: as a member of this book club I have to say that I think the reason we kept coming back to it is that it seemed so hard to believe that people would voluntarily put themselves through such an ordeal! And, since we were women, many of us with children, we couldn't imagine putting our lives on the line. What also made our discussions interesting was that many of the men in our lives COULD imagine volunteering for such an ordeal (in the name of adventure).
Fay, I think you're right about the appeal of the book for us.
What do you think of the Kingsolver book? And congratulations on figuring out how to post comments! Talking to you on my blog is almost as silly as emailing with Ed when he's 20 feet away on the couch! We must cross the street one of these days!
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