It's fair to assume that cannibalism is one of the reasons, if not the only reason, that the 1972 Andes plane crash is so well-known. When I ran into Read's book, it was the first thing that came to my mind, too. "Right, it was that incident where a rugby team started eating the dead." It's easy to write a sensationalist account of something like this, but Read's approach is matter-of-fact. Not particularly riveting (at least the dated translation I had), but it does its job and seems to be accurate. For those that want a more personal point of view, Nando Parrado's memoir could also be of interest.

Ten weeks high in the mountains, at a spot drowning in snow and practically with no vegetation. It's hard to imagine a situation like this where you're forced to make tough decisions, to decide whether you want to grasp at the tiny chance of survival. At the end of the day, some of the families got their brothers and sons back. If they hadn't done what had to be done, there would have been zero survivors.

Although I knew they would be rescued, I actually started to cry so hard when the ones who were chosen for the rescue trek made contact with outsiders after 10 days and 61 km. The changes and omissions the 1993 movie made to the story felt a bit underwhelming, particularly at this point, but I guess it was a running time thing. In any case, this is an amazing story of survival, humanity, and tenaciousness.