Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way, by John Krakauer

The Story: I don’t know how many of you have read Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson, but I remember for a hot minute that book was EVERYWHERE. When I read it, I wrote this review on Goodreads (oh days before my little blog!). Pretty much I was very unimpressed with the writing but did think that Greg’s story was phenomenal and inspirational.

Apparently, so did John Krakauer. Because he is an avid climber (according to Mortenson, he got lost after climbing down a mountain, ended up in his sherpa’s village and then committed to building a school for them), the story really touched home with him. He poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the organization that Greg Mortenson had started and even spoken at events to introduce the guy. They had never been friends really, but Krakauer did think that they had similar passions and wanted to get behind what Greg was doing.

After years of this, John met someone who he thought was a mutual friend of he and Greg. Greg’s name came up and the friend confided in John that he knew stuff about Greg’s organization that made him very, very uncomfortable. Because he had given/was giving so much money (and had had little suspicions of his own), John was instantly intrigued. He is an investigative importer- it’s what he does- so that kicked in and he started investigating and was really ticked at what he found.

Pretty much, Greg had fabricated a huge percentage of his story, and more upsetting- he was taking money that people were donating and using it just for himself. The board of his charity-organization was quitting left and right because Greg wouldn’t answer calls or be in anyway accountable to the money he was spending. Again, when John Krakauer contacted him to let him know that he was going public with this information, he refused to comment and pretty much acted like a jerk about the whole thing- to a guy who had bankrolled him in a big way- so Krakauer went ahead with the piece and this little 80-something page book is the result.

What I Thought: Like I said, I didn’t love or hate Three Cups of Tea. I thought what Greg was doing was cool but thought that the book itself was kind of dumb. When I heard about this book, I kind of rolled my eyes. I thought that the “big deal” was that Mortenson had kind of flubbed the order of stuff or whatever. I was totally willing to be forgiving because who on earth can remember the exact order of everything? Had that been the case, I would have said that he just had a bad memory. No. That’s not the case at all.

The money thing is SO CRAZY. Dude just makes money off of donations- people that go to his signings/talks, kids in schools where he presents his “Pennies for Peace” deal, and big time philanthropists. The money is SUPPOSED to go to building these schools in Afghanistan. There is no sign that that is happening. John Krakauer even went over to check out some of the “schools” that had been built and they were just standing empty- there was no research done into where to build them so the few that are standing are totally unused because they are not in areas with children. What?! Who does that?

I could go on and on about all these little facts that made me want to punch Greg Mortenson. This is just a short little book- more like a long article- and as I read it, I could feel my mouth dropping further and further open. It is absolutely shocking what a total arrogant crook this dude is. I walked away from Greg Mortenson’s book feeling a big inspired. I walked away from this one feeling almost sick to my stomach. I would love to know what has happened with Greg Mortenson and his organization since this was printed- if people that backed him pulled their funds and if Greg Mortenson is continuing to speak at schools. I hope that all of it is getting pulled out from under his feet because he absolutely deserves it.

Conclusion: If you read Three Cups of Tea, I really, highly recommend you read this.