Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains | 1990 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 2 | Into the Wild | 1996 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 3 | Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster | 1997 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 4 | Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith | 2003 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 5 | Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman | 2008 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 6 | Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way | 2011 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 7 | Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town | 2015 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
| 8 | Classic Krakauer: Essays on Wilderness and Risk | 2018 | Jon Krakauer | Buy |
Jon Krakauer’s eight non-fiction books span nearly three decades and cover subjects from mountain climbing to religious violence to campus sexual assault. Eiger Dreams (1990) collected his early mountaineering journalism, and Into the Wild (1996) and Into Thin Air (1997) made him a household name. The mountaineering books draw on Krakauer’s own experience as a climber and his ability to convey what it feels like to be cold, exhausted, and making life-or-death decisions at altitude.
His later books tackle institutional and systemic failures. Under the Banner of Heaven (2003) examines fundamentalist Mormon violence, Where Men Win Glory (2008) questions the military’s handling of Pat Tillman’s death, and Missoula (2015) investigates how a university and justice system responded to rape accusations. Classic Krakauer (2018) collects essays on wilderness and risk from throughout his career, bookending a body of work that consistently asks hard questions about human behavior under pressure.