Michael Kodas

Check out Michael’s interview with Faith Salie, host of the Public Radio International program Fair Game.

You can check out my appearance at the Sierra Club Radio website. 

Entertainment Weekly gave High Crimes an “A-” in their review, which stated that “Like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, High Crimes, an account of an Everest ascent, effectively strips the journey of all sentiment…Kodas forever dispels whatever romantic ideas readers may hold about the great Himalayan peak.” Check the review in its entirety at the Entertainment Weekly website, or in the magazine.

I’ll be visiting the New Canaan Library to present a multimedia program about High Crimes on Sunday, Feb. 24th at 4 pm. Elm Street Books will be on hand with books. For more information contact Kathleen Millard at Elm Street Books at 203-966-4545 or email her at kathleen@elmstreetbooks.com.

I’ll be making a half-hour presentation to a men’s group at the Westport Public Library, 20 Jesup Road, Westport, CT, at noon on Friday, Feb. 15.

The first northern New England presentation of High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed will be at the Inn at Stratton Mountain, 61 Middle Ridge RoadStratton Mountain, VT. The Northshire Bookstore will be on hand with copies of the book. For more information contact Kelly Odiorne, Guest Experience Manager, Stratton Mountain Resort at (802) 297-4288; or Linda Ellingsworth, Northshire Events Coordinator at lellingsworth@northshire.com, 802-362-3565, x 128. And pray for some snow!

I’m honored that Outside magazine chose to review High Crimes, even more so that the review was written by Brad Wetzler, best known as the editor at the magazine who came up with the idea to send Jon Krakauer to Mount Everest in 1996. That assignment led Krakauer to the top of Everest, from which he descended into the middle of the deadliest day in the mountain’s history. His story on the disaster was perhaps the longest feature in magazine’s history and eventually grew into the bestseller, Into Thin Air. Ten years later, Outside published an issue commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the Everest disaster. Krakauer didn’t write anything for that edition, but Wetzler, his editor, penned a wrenching recollection of learning that climbers on the Krakauer’s team had died in a storm and the writer was unaccounted for. You can read Wetzler’s description of how the deadly storm on Everest cast a pal over a party Outside staffers were throwing in the September, 2006 issue of the magazine. You can read Wetzler’s review of my book in the February, 2008 issue. - Michael

“Kodas’s writing is clear and forceful, and he creates several gripping moments of suspense. In the end, there’s no getting around his conclusion: Everest, now more than ever, is a place any sane person would avoid.” - Brad Wetzler                           Check out the full review in the February, 2008 issue of Outside magazine