Michael Belcher > Recent Status Updates

My best description of this book is "Fear and Loathing in World War II." The author travels the elite salons, bourgeois bars, and royal banquet halls of Europe telling stories of the horror, humanity and black humor of the war. A surreal mixture of fact and fiction, wit and wisdom, history and fantasy, told as a memoir by a sharp-witted, sardonic Italian ambassador.

Unflinching description of the 1996 Mt. Everest climbing tragedy relayed by guide, survivor and hero Anatoli Boukereev. As noted by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the book exposes the crucial details absent from Jon Krakauer's "slickly written" book "Into Thin Air." Boukereev explores the logistical, technical, physiological and interpersonal challenges required to successfully summit (or die trying).

Inspiring.

Buk at his best!

This book is a compilation of trite sports platitudes: Keep your eye on the goal; Fake it until you make it; Push beyond your boundaries. Echos of the admonitions of your first T-ball coach will resonate in your ears as you read.