Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Riveting! I have no personal interest in mountain climbing (though I like hiking- the flatter the better) and certainly, I have no interest in climbing Mount Everest, but this book kept me turning the pages as quickly as I could.

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because it left me wanting a more literary or philosophical examination of life and death. My first thought was it's crazy to climb Mt. Everest. But my second thought was - well, none of us are making it off this planet alive. Maybe the issue with climbing Mt. Everest is more an issue of age and family situation. But there was no real exploration of any more meaningful exploration of the choice to scale the mountain though there was a fair bit of discussion about the duty the people on the mountain did or didn't owe to each other, though most of that had a somewhat indirect quality about it.

View all my reviews

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Buddha's name was Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Gautama Buddha. In this novel, the Buddha is referred to as Gotama. The main character, "Siddhartha" is not the Buddha, but an Indian man seeking enlightenment who eventually meets Gotama. It's kind of a buddy book because his best friend Govinda joins him on this quest. It's also sort of the story of the Buddha because a lot of the story is loosely based on what is said of the Buddha's life and teachings.

I've read a bit about Buddhism, and this one just doesn't do it for me. Possibly this is in part because of the strange device of creating a parallel Buddha life.

View all my reviews