Spanning a fantastic range of subject areas and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is known as a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

His items take us from a horrifying avalanche on Support Everest to a volcano poised to obliterate a large chunk of Seattle; from a wilderness teen-therapy plan run by apparent sadists for an otherworldly cave in New Mexico, studied by NASA to better understand Mars; through the notebook of one Fred Beckey, who catalogued the best unclimbed mountaineering routes on earth, towards the last days of famous surfer Tag Foo. Bringing together work originally published in such mags as The New Yorker, Outside, and Smithsonian-all rigorously researched, vividly created, and marked by an unerring instinct for storytelling and scoop-Classic Krakauer powerfully demonstrates the author’s ambivalent love affair with unruly landscapes and his relentless seek out truth.