Are There Any Sequels To Reach For The Sky?

If you bring up 'Buried in the Sky', the names behind it that I always mention first are Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan. I picked this book up because the subtitle hooked me — it's about Sherpa climbers on K2's deadliest day — and I was curious who had the nerve and care to tell such a difficult, human story. Zuckerman and Padoan teamed up to blend investigative reporting with on-the-ground interviews, and you can feel both the journalist's curiosity and the storyteller's empathy on every page. What grabbed me most, beyond the facts, was how the authors treated the Sherpas not as background figures but as the central characters. The pacing is part biography, part mountaineering disaster narrative, and part cultural exploration. Zuckerman brings a sharp, clear prose that pushes you through the timeline, while Padoan's contributions give texture and warmth to the portraits of climbers and their families. If you like 'Into Thin Air' for its tension and self-reflection, 'Buried in the Sky' complements it by widening the lens to the local communities and the often-unseen sacrifices on big mountains. I also appreciate how the book makes you think about risk, responsibility, and storytelling itself. The research felt thorough, and the interviews stick with you; even weeks later I was replaying lines about loyalty, weather, and choices on the ridge. It isn't a light read, but it's honest and reverent in a way that made me respect both the subject matter and the authors. For anyone curious about high-altitude climbing or human stories behind headlines, Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan did something I respect — they listened and then wrote with care, and that left a real impression on me.

for most night-sky viewers in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes tonight, the sweet spot is between astronomical dusk (when the Sun is about 18° below the horizon and the sky is truly dark) and the few hours after local midnight. That usually means roughly 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM local time, though the precise hour shifts with the calendar and your latitude. A quick way I explain it to friends is to think about 'culmination'—that moment a star or constellation crosses your local meridian and sits highest in the sky. That's when it's easiest to see (least atmospheric dimming). So, Vega, Deneb and Altair (the Summer Triangle) tend to be very prominent and often peak near or just after that meridian crossing. Also keep an eye on the Moon: a bright moon or nearby light pollution can wash out faint Milky Way detail around Sagittarius and Scorpius, which are spectacular when dark. If tonight's moon is small or below your horizon and the sky is clear, aim for that midnight window and face south or straight up depending on your latitude. Bring a red flashlight, let your eyes adapt, and you'll catch the best of the summer sky—trust me, it feels like the heavens are showing off.

There’s a neat little cluster of pop songs and indie tracks that lean on the exact phrase or very close imagery of ‘falling from the sky’, and I like to think of them as the soundtrack to cinematic moments where everything crashes in — or lightens up. If you want straightforward hits that use sky/rain/falling imagery, start with the obvious rain songs: 'Here Comes the Rain Again' (Eurythmics) and 'Set Fire to the Rain' (Adele) — they don’t always say the exact phrase but they live in the same lyrical neighborhood. Train’s 'Drops of Jupiter' uses celestial fall imagery with lines like ‘did you fall from a star?’, and that feels emotionally equivalent. For tracks that literally use the line or very close variants, you’ll find it more in indie pop, electronic, and some modern singer-songwriter cuts. There are a handful of songs actually titled 'Falling From the Sky' across artists and EPs — those are easy to spot on streaming services if you search the phrase in quotes. Also check out reinterpretations and covers: live versions often tinker with wording and might slip in that exact line. I love how the phrase can be used both romantically and apocalyptically depending on production — a synth pad will make ‘falling from the sky’ feel cosmic, whereas a lone piano will make it fragile. Personally, I end up compiling these into a moody playlist for late-night walks; the imagery always hits differently depending on the tempo and key, which is part of the fun.

If you're talking about the non-fiction book 'Buried in the Sky', then yes — the book itself is originally written in English and widely available in English editions. I picked up a copy a few years back because I was fascinated by mountain stories, and what struck me most was how the authors center the Sherpa perspective on K2's 2008 catastrophe. It reads like investigative journalism mixed with intimate portraiture, and you can find it in paperback, e-book formats, and often as an audiobook through major retailers and libraries. The publisher's listing and ISBN are the fastest ways to confirm a specific edition if you want the exact printing. If, however, you meant a different work that shares the title 'Buried in the Sky' — maybe a manga, short story, or foreign novel — the situation can be more mixed. There are a surprising number of works that reuse poetic titles, and some are translated officially while others only exist in fan translations. My go-to approach is to check WorldCat or my local library's catalog and then cross-check on sites like Goodreads or the publisher's site. That usually tells me whether an authorized English translation exists, who did the translation, and which country released it. For manga or serialized web novels, I sometimes dig through scanlation archives or Reddit threads to see if a fan translation exists, but I prefer official releases when possible. Bottom line for the non-fiction K2 book: you don't need a translation — it's already in English — and it's worth reading if you care about climbing history and human stories on extreme mountains. If you had a different 'Buried in the Sky' in mind, try searching by original language title or the author's name; that usually clears up which edition is which. Personally, the English edition gripped me for days afterward — such a haunting, human story.

I still get a little thrill saying it out loud: 'Castle in the Sky' first flew into theaters in Japan on August 2, 1986. That date always feels like a little festival in my head because it marked the official debut of Studio Ghibli as a theatrical studio with Hayao Miyazaki steering the ship—the lush clouds, the floating island, Joe Hisaishi’s unforgettable score, everything felt brand new. I saw it on VHS later as a kid and that memory of the airships and Sheeta’s pendant stuck with me for years. Beyond the Japanese premiere, the film trickled out internationally over the next several years through festivals, subtitled tapes, and later dubbed releases, so many of us outside Japan discovered it somewhat gradually. If you ever want to trace the different home video and theatrical windows, there are fun little timelines online showing when the English dubs, restorations, and Blu-rays arrived in various countries.

One of the moments in late antiquity that still gives me chills is how big the Sasanian realm got in the early 7th century. I like to picture it while flipping through a battered atlas on a rainy afternoon — the empire, under Khosrow II, stretched farther than it ever had before, roughly around 620–627 CE. After a string of spectacular victories over the Byzantines the Sasanians controlled Syria, Palestine, and even Egypt for a time, while keeping their long-held domains in Mesopotamia, Persia, and parts of the eastern provinces. That high-water mark didn’t last long. The Byzantine counteroffensive under Emperor Heraclius in 627–628 pushed the Sasanians back, and within a few decades the whole region was transformed again by the Arab conquests. Still, when I trace those borders on a map I get this vivid sense of a moment when Persia was the unrivaled power of the Near East — rich, militarized, and connected to long-distance trade routes — and that fleeting dominance makes for great late-night history rabbit holes for me.

I still get a little thrill when I look up on a clear winter night and spot that ridiculously bright point near Orion — it's hard not to, because Sirius practically steals the show. Sirius is the brightest star in our night sky and it lives in the constellation 'Canis Major', the Greater Dog. Its common nickname is the Dog Star, and once you know where to look (a quick line down from Orion's Belt), it jumps right out at you with a white-blue wink. What fascinates me most is that Sirius is only bright partly because it's luminous and partly because it's close: about 8.6 light-years away. Its apparent magnitude is around −1.46, which is why even city-sky viewers can often pick it out. There's also a neat twist — Sirius is a binary system. The main star, Sirius A, is a hot A-type star, and it has a much fainter companion, Sirius B, which is a white dwarf. If you ever have access to a decent amateur telescope and steady skies, spotting Sirius B is a rewarding challenge — it's a lovely peek into stellar evolution. Watching Sirius rise with Orion has become a small seasonal ritual for me: it marks the cooler months and the best constellation-hopping nights. If you're starting out, look for Orion's Belt and slide your gaze down-right (in the Northern Hemisphere) to find the Dog Star — simple, instantly satisfying, and a tiny spark of cosmic perspective that never gets old.

Under the sodium-orange glow of my neighborhood streetlamps, I used to swear the sky was a flat, dull ceiling — but then I learned the truth: yes, light pollution can hide even some of the brightest stars, though usually not the very brightest under typical conditions. Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky at about magnitude -1.46, is astonishingly luminous, so in many cities you can still spot it if it’s high enough above the horizon and the air is reasonably clear. The problem isn’t that the star itself dims; it’s that the sky’s background gets so bright from scattered artificial light that contrast vanishes. Skyglow, especially from unshielded streetlights and billboards, raises the “black level” of the sky. When the background brightness approaches the star’s apparent intensity, your eyes can no longer pick it out. Add low clouds, humidity, or haze, and even Sirius can disappear. What helped me most was learning limits: urban skies often limit visible stars to around magnitude 3 or 4, whereas a rural sky will reveal magnitude 6 or fainter. Practical fixes? Walk to a darker spot, wait until later at night when businesses shut off lights, use binoculars, or check light pollution maps. I still get a small thrill when I escape the city and the Milky Way floods the sky — nothing beats that contrast for showing off what’s truly hidden back home.