Jon Krakauer’s international bestseller Into Thin Air, claimed by many as the best in its genre, left the world reeling in astonishment at the worst disaster to beset climbers on the world’s highest mountain: Everest. His book sold in excess of four million copies in the US alone. The IMAX film Everest, which grossed more than $100 million in its first 24 months, covered aspects of the 1996 disaster, becoming the highest-grossing non-fiction film up to that time. Several other books were published and films made. But was the whole truth told?

A Day to Die For reveals for the first time the full, startling facts that led to the 1996 tragedy. As a first-hand witness, Graham Ratcliffe spent the night of 10 May on Everest’s South Col, at 26,000 ft, sheltering from the deadly storm that would claim eight lives. This is Graham’s incredible story of high adventure and of a very moving personal journey: his quest for the truth that would help him come to terms with the guilt he carried. For more than a decade, he had shouldered the burden of feeling that he and his fellow teammates could have saved lives that fateful night. So important to an understanding of the disaster were the author’s subsequent discoveries that they call him to question why such facts were kept from the public. His revelations rewrite the worst day in Everest’s long history. History is dotted with high-profile disasters that both horrify and grab the attention of the public at large, but very rarely is our view of them revised to such devastating effect.

‘…the result of a determination to expose the truth of what happened …What he has discovered makes for devastating and enthralling reading’
Dymocks Book Review