In February, 1959, a group of hikers, all but one college-aged, but all highly experienced hikers who were quite adequately prepared for their hike into the North Ural Mountains in Russia, perished on their journey under highly mysterious circumstances. Over the past more than 60 years following the incident, numerous theories have abounded, from the natural (avalanche) to the supernatural (aliens) to the human (government conspiracy). Not one of these theories can completely explain every detail of the circumstances surrounding their deaths. What on Earth could cause 9 intelligent, skilled, and experienced young hikers to flee the safety and warmth of their tent in dangerously frigid temperatures without even the protection of shoes?
Documentary filmmaker Donnie Eichar, having become obsessed with the mystery surrounding this case, embarked on a journey to uncover the truth, the results of which are recounted in Dead Mountain. Eichar alternates between the facts as known of February 1st and 2nd, 1959, and his own trips to Russia in search of answers. Over the years he spent researching, he combed through case files and trip logs, interviewed surviving family and acquaintances of the deceased, including the one surviving member of the hiking party who had turned back due to illness prior to the incident, and even trekked the same path into the Ural Mountains as the ill-fated crew. Eichar analyzes each various theory and explains why most of the popular theories simply don’t carry much weight or are just downright ridiculous.
His narrative is as riveting as it is perplexing, but it’s when Eichar reaches his own theory that things seem to fall into place. His theory is explosive, unique, and actually carries a startling amount of plausibility. It’s also gifted to me something new to be anxious about.
Fabulous…
This book is a labor of love from a man who took his job seriously. He tells the story of these young people in a way that honors their memory, celebrates their lives, and strictly adheres to a quest for the truth. His writing is competent and concise, and his grit and determination to solve the case are to be admired. Maybe we will never know the true and completely accurate reason for the deaths of these young people, but Eichar provides us with an absolutely compelling, though tragic and terrifying, possibility.
2025 Reading Challenge pick: #4 – Title containing “Dead” or “Death”
Published March 18, 2014 by Audible Studios. ASIN B00IO4L86Y. Runtime 6 hrs. 23 mins. Narrated by The Author.
Troubled teen, Cindra, having been convicted in an armed robbery scheme along with her boyfriend, arrives at Camp Challenge, a reform camp for girls located in Montana. A former city girl, she will have to navigate her new world in the American west, a world of cowboys and vast wilderness. While at camp, she meets Lucky Turtle, a native man who works at the camp as a driver. Lucky tells her his Aunt told him they were destined to be together. From that moment on, they are thrown into a love story that will span decades and miles and include unbearable hardships. 
I’ll start this review by saying that it was a terrible choice. I’m not saying it’s a terrible book, but it wasn’t a great choice to begin. I’ve never read any of this author’s work before now, and from what I’ve read about the author, this is something that was a little different for him. Le Carré, born David John Moore Cornwell, was a former intelligence officer and British author of numerous beloved novels of espionage. His George Smiley spy novels have amassed a cult following and his work has inspired numerous adaptations for film and television, including 2005’s The Constant Gardener and 2011’s Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. Following his death in 2020, his son, Nick Cornwell, a writer who publishes under the pen name Nick Harkaway, decided to continue the George Smiley series. In addition, he released his dad’s last manuscript, one which the author had chosen not to publish. According to Harkaway in the afterward for the novel, he believes his father didn’t publish Silverview because it “does something that no other le Carré novel ever has. It shows a service fragmented: filled with its own political factions, not always kind to those it should cherish … and ultimately not sure, any more, that it can justify itself.”
This is quite possibly the most difficult review I’ll write for 2024. Yes, please ignore the fact that I’m posting my last 3 reviews (3!!!) for 2024 finished books in 2025. Forgive me, I’m not really on my game, as one would say. No… let me change that. That was absolutely on purpose because I’m doing my reviews in a non-linear flashback-laden fashion in honor of this book. You’re buying that, right? Would you instead believe I’ve been stuck in a well for the whole of 2025 having intense life-changing metaphysical experiences? 
Alas, for my shame. This is my choice for my Bad Reader category in 2024- the book I have seen an adaptation of but never picked up. I know, I know!!! How could I have gone through 40 years of life without ever having read A Christmas Carol??? Honestly, maybe I did at some point but the actual book is buried in my brain beneath the various recreations by film, play, muppet and anything else that dared to take on the most quintessential Christmas tale of all time. Trust me… I KNOW A Christmas Carol. Just this year I saw another hour-long dramatized version at Silver Dollar City complete with a very silly version of The Ghost of Christmas present. I’m telling you, she was something else. I don’t really understand why so many dramatized versions choose to do such odd versions of the ghosts unless it’s just to entertain the children, but some of them can be quite annoying. In the novel, Dickens gave all the ghosts the gravity befitting their station. 
This one is a choice for my reading challenge that’s a new-to-me classic. Not only had I never picked up one of his books before, but I’d been saying his name wrong all these years. Thank you narrator David Horovitch for setting me straight on that one. I will say, it sounds a lot better in real life than the version that was in my head. 
Eliza Marino is a teen who deals with constant threats from external forces. Having survived a hurricane five years previous that threatened to destroy the home on Long Beach Island in New Jersey that she adores, she now spends her days and nights trying to protect it. She fights not just against the ravaging effects of climate change but against the tide of developers who seek to transform the local protected habitats for their own selfish gain. When Eliza meets Milo Harris, the wealthy son of a rich tourist who has come for the summer, she reluctantly agrees to give him surfing lessons despite going against everything he stands for. As the two grow closer over the course of the summer, Eliza finds herself torn between the life she knows she’s meant to live and the boy whose mere presence threatens to destroy it. 
Hailing from a highly respected family with deep military roots, Frankie McGrath grew up believing in heroism, having long admired the family pictures of servicemen on her father’s “wall of heroes.” When her brother, Finley, signs up as a helicopter pilot for the Vietnam War, Frankie chooses to follow him in the only capacity in which she can, as an army nurse stationed in the thick of the turmoil. Though completely ill-prepared, Frankie arrives in Vietnam during a mass casualty event, finding herself thrust into a trial-by-fire situation in which she must endure the most horrifying tests of her courage and endurance or crumple into a heap.
A Librarian and Her Books 