Author Guide · Lisanne Swart
Books Written by Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer’s entire body of work circles one question: what drives a person toward the exact thing that might kill them, or nearly does. A young man who gives away his savings and walks into the Alaskan wilderness alone. A guided expedition to Everest that turns fatal. A closed religious sect and the murder committed in its name. He reports these stories with an obsessive, sometimes controversial thoroughness — he was on the mountain for Into Thin Air, not just researching it afterward. This page covers his major books, in order.
By Lisanne Swart · 7 major books · Narrative Nonfiction · Adventure · Updated August 2026 · ~8 min read
Quick answer
Jon Krakauer has written seven major nonfiction books, from Eiger Dreams (1990) to Classic Krakauer (2019), a collection of earlier journalism. Into the Wild (1996) and Into Thin Air (1997) are his two best-known and most widely read books. Start with either, depending on whether you want one man’s story or a group’s.
Key facts
- Born: April 12, 1954, Brooklyn, New York
- Best-known books: Into the Wild (1996) and Into Thin Air (1997)
- Background: Mountaineer and journalist; personally present on the 1996 Everest expedition covered in Into Thin Air
- Recurring theme: What compels people toward extreme, often fatal, personal risk
- Most controversial book: Three Cups of Deceit (2011), a direct investigative takedown of a bestselling author’s fabricated claims
Why trust this list: Every book below is one I’ve read in full. Curated by Lisanne Swart.
In this guide
- His debut, on obsessive mountaineering
- One young man’s walk into the Alaskan wilderness
- The 1996 Everest disaster, from inside it
- A murder inside a closed religious sect
- A football star turned soldier, and the cover-up after his death
- His investigation into a bestselling author’s fabrications
- Campus sexual assault in one American college town
- Frequently asked questions
Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains
Krakauer’s debut, a collection of essays on mountaineering drawn from his years as an outdoor journalist, covering climbers, expeditions, and the specific psychology of people who choose to risk their lives on rock and ice.
Less narratively ambitious than his later books, but it establishes the obsessive research and personal climbing experience he’d bring to everything after.
Into the Wild
Krakauer reconstructs the story of Christopher McCandless, a young man who gave away his savings, abandoned his car, and walked into the Alaskan wilderness in 1992 with minimal supplies, and was found dead four months later. Krakauer traces McCandless’s path and motivations, drawing partly on his own youthful risk-taking to understand rather than simply judge him.
His most enduringly popular book, and a genuinely empathetic attempt to understand a decision most readers’ first instinct is to dismiss as reckless or naive.
Into Thin Air
Krakauer’s account of the May 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers died in a single storm during a commercially guided expedition — an expedition Krakauer was personally on, reporting for Outside magazine, making this both journalism and firsthand survivor testimony.
Unusually, Krakauer isn’t just reporting this story — he lived it, and the book is candid about his own choices and guilt in ways a purely external account couldn’t be.
Where Men Win Glory
The story of Pat Tillman, an NFL player who gave up a lucrative career to enlist in the U.S. Army after September 11, and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004 — a death the military initially misrepresented to his family and the public as enemy action.
As much an investigation into institutional dishonesty as it is a biography — Krakauer is as interested in exposing the cover-up as he is in Tillman’s own motivations.
Three Cups of Deceit
A short, pointed investigation into Greg Mortenson, author of the bestselling memoir Three Cups of Tea, whom Krakauer accuses of fabricating key events in his book and misusing donor funds from his humanitarian foundation.
A departure in form from his longer books — a fast, direct piece of investigative journalism rather than an extended narrative — and a notable instance of Krakauer turning his scrutiny on another writer rather than a historical event.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
Krakauer examines a series of sexual assault cases at the University of Montana in Missoula, following survivors through the reporting, investigation, and prosecution process to expose how frequently the justice system fails to hold perpetrators accountable.
A more explicitly social-justice-oriented book than his earlier work, applying the same close, empathetic reporting method to survivors’ experiences of institutional failure rather than to mountaineering or wilderness risk.
Frequently asked questions
More from the shelf
Reading list
Best True Crime Books
Real stakes, real consequences.
Author Guide
Books Written by Erik Larson
More narrative history with propulsive pacing.
Author Guide
Authors Like Nicholas Kristof
More narrative nonfiction with real stakes.
Author Index
Every Author Guide, A–Z
Browse all author guides on the shelf.
From the bookshelf
Find your next book — hand-picked, not algorithmically sorted.
If books about what drives people toward extreme risk are your thing, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author pages, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations