Book Description
This book tells the story of a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest’s first ascent. It is a story of tremendous courage, astonishing achievement and heart-breaking loss. Their leader was the boyish, fanatically driven Chris Bonington. His inner circle — which came to be know as Bonington’s Boys — included a dozen who became climbing’s greatest generation. Bonington’s Boys gave birth to a new brand of climbing. They took increasingly terrible risks on now-legendary expeditions to the world’s most fearsome peaks. And they paid an enormous price for their achievements. Most of Bonington’s Boys died in the mountains, leaving behind the hardest question of all: Was it worth it?
The Boys of Everest, based on interviews with surviving climbers and other individuals, as well as five decades of journals, expedition accounts, and letters, provides the closest thing to an answer that we’ll ever have. It offers riveting descriptions of what Bonington's Boys found in the mountains, as well as an understanding of what they lost there.
Customer Reviews:
This is a powerful gift!.......2006-11-21
The Boys of Everest puts us in the heart of the extreme imperative. We are able to know in some way what it is to have no other choice in this world but to act without hesitation to preserve our selves. We know what it is like to be brought to the end of things. Our minds do not deliberate over the choices. We step further and further out across a great wall on the face of a monster and discover we have no place to retreat. We find ourselves trapped or liberated. We allow something inside to determine the difference. This place, so close to the end, can also be the beginning.
Clint Willis has shown us the heart of climbing (actually the heart of everything) and it is a powerful gift!
I Lived On The Mountains While Reading This Book.......2006-10-22
Reading The Boys of Everest is the closest I'll ever come to entering the small circle of hard-core mountaineers. I devoured this book and missed living in its world when I was done. Clint Willis' descriptions and images are so vivid that I could have been a quiet companion, somehow participating with Chris Bonington and his brethren from a safe place in the bone chilling cold. I almost felt dizzy from unimaginable heights, disoriented and physically ill from altitude sickness, and sick with grief each time a climber, whom I had come to know, perished on a mountain. The book continued to engage me, even though the circumstances were often heartbreaking. In that sense, I nearly adopted the characters' mindsets: I had to keep going through the next chapter, and the next mountain, despite the sadness of losing someone on the previous one. Through Clint Willis' incredible prose, I've been able to dwell inside the heads of fascinating people.
Willis Gets It Right.......2006-10-20
As an armchair mountain climber (I read these books out of amazement that anyone would ever try these stunts), I have to say that author Willis is at the top of the heap. He not only seems to get what's going on in the heads of extreme mountain climbers, but he knows how to convey it--in gripping prose that is never clicheed. I have some of Willis' anthologies of adventure writing, so I know he is well-read in the genre (and a mountaineer himself). He has clearly absorbed the best of that writing, and turned it into something fresh in his own effort. Paradoxically, for a story that celebrates a bunch of social misfits, the book is full of wisdom about how to live life. This is no ordinary biography. As for the actual climbing passages--good luck putting this book down. I had to force myself not to flip ahead and see who dies next.
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Everest Expeditions
Sir Chris Bonington
Manufacturer: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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Binding: Hardcover
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Book Description
In three books, Everest the Hard Way (1976), Everest South-West Face (1973) and Everest the Unclimbed Ridge (written with Charles Clarke in1983), Chris Bonington demonstrated how, in the years after John Hunt's expedition made the first ascent of Everest, climbers chose different routes to reach the same pinnacle. Bonington himself has taken part in nineteen Himalayan expeditions. Here, for the first time, these classic, first-hand accounts are brought together in one omnibus volume, with photographs drawn from his own archive of photographs and those of other climbers.
Book Description
Adrenaline Classics continues to bring to the fore the work of the father of modern mountaineering, the celebrated climber and writer, Sir Chris Bonington. Everest—The Unclimbed Ridge is a genuine classic of Everest literature, a book that series editor Clint Willis calls “the real climber’s Into Thin Air.” Bonington and coauthor Charles Clarke tell the story of Bonington’s most tragic expedition—a bold attempt on the fearsome Northeast Ridge of Everest. This is the expedition that killed two of Bonington’s closest friends—two young men who were part of mountaineering’s greatest generation; Joe Tasker and Peter Boardman set out one morning and never made it back. With 24 black-and-white photos and spectacular, edge-of-your-seat climbing, the book offers some of the most moving and powerful moments in modern mountaineering writing. “This was an epic, groundbreaking ascent by one of the most talented teams ever to hit the Himalaya.”—Stephen Venables (author of Everest: Alone at the Summit)
Customer Reviews:
"They Walked Out Of Our Lives...".......2007-05-21
"Everest: The Unclimbed Ridge" is the story of the 1982 British attempt on the then-unclimbed Northeast Ridge of Mount Everest. Co-authored by Sir Chris Bonington and Charles Clarke, it illustrates both the thrills and deadly perils of extreme high altitude alpine-style climbing.
Bonington put together a light but elite team for his 1982 expedition, featuring himself and accomplished climbers Pete Boardman, Joe Tasker, and Dick Renshaw, backed by two support climbers, Adrian Gordon and Charles Clarke. The first part of the book is a quick recap of previous climbing on Everest, following by a fascinating narrative of the team's journey to its base camp on the North side of Everest.
The struggle to forge an alpine-style route up the Northeast Ridge is candidly portrayed by Bonington and Clarke. Their narrative is supplemented by quotes from Pete Boardman's diary and letters. The team, climbing at over 8,000 meters without oxygen and with only limited use of fixed ropes, makes slow and painful progress over challenging terrain.
After weeks on the mountain, things begin to go wrong. All the climbers are physically deteriorating from too much time at high altitude. Chris Bonington, then in his late 40's, discovers he can no longer keep pace with his younger counterparts. Dick Renshaw suffers two minor strokes and must be evacuated to medical care. Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker make one last try at the summit, and disappear.
The bodies of Boardman and Tasker would be found years later on the ridge near where they were last seen from a distance by Bonington and Gordon. The Northeast Ridge would finally be climbed, with fixed ropes and supplemental oxygen, in 1995. These facts were obviously unknown to Bonington and Clarke when they closed out this narrative in 1983. The reader is left with a poignant mystery and the enduring question of high altitude climbing: was it worth it?
This book is highly recommended as a fascinating and well-written narrative of a high altitude expedition and its effects on the climbers.
If you can find a copy, go for it!.......1999-10-19
Heart-breaking, tense and on some level maddening, this is the story of Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker's last expedition. Copious quotes, especially from Pete's diary, give it its emotionally touching quality. Bonington chillingly describes the survivors' long wait and gradual realization that something has gone terribly wrong. No one really knows what happened to Boardman and Tasker, especially since their bodies were later found, indicating they were not killed in a fall as Bonington surmised. This book cannot illuminate the mystery, but can illustrate the magnitude of our loss.
Amazon.com
Editor Clint Willis collects some of mountaineering's finest writing in these tales from storied expeditions to grails like Everest and K2. Included are classic accounts of early American attempts on K2, by consensus the most daunting and ruthless peak to summit. Frank Smythe's telling of his 1933 attempt and Charles Houston and Robert Bates's from 1938 typify the wooly-knickered bravado of pre-war climbing. As counterpoint, Willis serves up Galen Rowell's sad and unadorned journal from the tempestuous 1975 failed expedition.
But there are other angles as well. Tucked in the middle of High is a gem told by an Everest widow, Maria Coffey, who traveled to the base of the mountain that took her husband and his partner: "I could pick out the ridge where Joe and Pete were last seen. The image blurred, tears were washing down my face and collecting in the jacket collar pulled tightly around my chin." In a collection of writing that soars it is a moving--and grounding--reminder of mountaineering's risks. --Tipton Blish
Book Description
Everest and K2two of the most feared and respected peaks in the world. High offers a unique perspective on climbing these two peaks, from early exploration disasters, to the modern tragedies.
With writing from Jon Krakauer, Matt Dickinson, Chris Bonington, David Roberts and others, these stories remind us, in vivid written accounts, why Everest and K2 are among the worlds most dangerous places, yet why the worlds best climbers cant stay away from them.
High is an adventure audiobook at its most compelling.
Customer Reviews:
An Essential Book.......2005-01-28
This is a classic. Well told stories of the difficulties encountered climbing Everest and K2. The machismo seems to have been left far below the altitudes these climbers struggle at. These true accounts finally wind together around common threads of stress, inability to think and act rationally under extreme conditions. Minor decisions and misunderstandings result in triumph or failure.
A great book.
David Roberts has established himself as an essential source for understanding why we seek adventure and what really is there in the midst of it. I've got a list of his books and I plan to read all of it.
Mildly Interesting but a Tad Repetitious.......2004-08-10
This attractively presented volume is a compilation of excerpts from various accounts of attempts, successful or otherwise, to climb Everest and K2. These accounts are for the most part from different English and American expeditions from the 1930s onwards, but include for variation the first-person narrative of travels through Tibet toward the fatal mountains by the widow of a fallen climber.
Some expeditions take a massive army-style assault on the peaks, using complicated supply chains, support teams, hundreds of Sherpas, and tons of equipment. This is sort of the "Humanity Conquers Nature" approach. Others plan for basically a sprint up the mountain, traveling light with minimal support and small groups, and eschewing the use of oxygen cylinders and fancy gadgetry. This is the "Triumph of the Will" approach. These purists are always keen on trying routes no one else has attempted, and they avoid using the ladders and fixed ropes and stuff left by previous expeditions.
It's that latter style of climbing that has become especially dangerous, because once someone has reached the pinnacle without oxygen, the bar has been dramatically raised, and anyone who follows and doesn't try the same looks weak. So ever-escalating feats of bravado must necessarily follow, where it won't be long before we'll see accomplishments such as "first to climb Everest while naked" or something like that.
While there are a number of gripping scenes related in this book, there's also a great deal of repetition. A whole lot of verbiage is devoted to, essentially, "Man, it's cold up there!" So we read again and again about firing up stoves and snuggling into sleeping bags and taking an hour to put on boots and the like. There's also a lot of technical language to be encountered, which is likely to be appreciated more by climbers than the layperson, who has to wade through a lot of "I jumared down the fixed 5mm rope across a transverse field of powder to reach the couloir beyond cul that led to the cwm". Climbers will be nodding knowingly; armchair adrenaline junkies will be scratching their heads. (Note that a glossary of terms is hidden at the back of the book where it does no one any good.)
Ultimately, the most interesting tales prove to be those where the climbers hate each other and fall into bitter bickering over who gets to make the dash to the top, or who fouled up and ruined everything. The mountains have many ways to kill people, but a lot of the tragedies are of the "and they were never seen again" variety. I'm not advocating that we should be exposed voyeuristically to all of the gory details of horrible deaths, but most of the disasters are rather pallidly rendered, and frankly the human drama ends up being more interesting than hearing again and again about the interesting technical challenges of getting over the Abruzzi Ridge or whatever.
An assortment of maps would have helped immensely.
the interior climb.......2003-05-20
I very much enjoyed and highly recommend this book. I've read many of the books from which these chapters are selected, yet there was much fresh material for me. The editing was so masterful that even though the chapters are from different writers, mountains, and times, they flowed together seamlessly
High does for climbing what the movie The Thin Red Line did for combat: It explores not the details of the event, but the inner thoughts of the participants. You read what it feels like to have a climber dying in a tent next to you. You learn about the humilation of having frostbite while back at home. You are with the widows who trek in the paths of their husbands to glimpse the mountain graves of their loved ones.
While I can understand that some reviewers felt the selections dropped one into the middle of a big problem high on a mountain without the broader context of the expedition, I didn't feel this was a problem. I don't need the beginning, middle, and end to enjoy a brief tale. There are plenty of books that give all those details, yet few that are gripping to read from the first page to the last.
Don't Bother with this one!.......2002-03-07
Like all of you who read this review,you're Everest junkies who probably won't even get near this mountain, but are hooked on all books about it.
High; Stories of survival from Everest and K2 is NOT what you're looking for. This book is nothing but one-chapter excerpts from other books. It's like walking into a movie half way through: You have no idea what's going on. Also, there are no maps of either Everest or K2, so if writers of these chapters (and some of them are BORING writers!) describe trouble on Everest's north col or K2's Abruzzi ridge, we can't picture these places in our minds.
This book (unlike all the other Everest books I bought and immediately read) has been sitting on my bedstand for months. I only read it when I wake up at 3AM and can't go back to sleep. Just reading from this book puts me back to sleep reeeeeal fast!
Don't bother with this one. The Everest season is happening right now. Maybe more books will come from this year's hikers.
damn good read.......2001-02-25
This is the first book i've read that was a collection of excerpts from other books. It is a real page turner and you will work through it quickly, desperately wanting more non-fiction adventure reading to follow. Well anyways, just buy it. you won't be disappointed.
Book Description
An intimate story of personal cost, risk, and loss in the mountaineering world.
Nobody has written more eloquently about the human side of high-altitude mountaineering than Maria Coffey. Because the mountaineering world has faced so many devastating losses recently, this is an especially timely story about the loved ones left behind to sort out their sorrow and confusion, anger and healing.
With openness and honesty, Coffey describes her love affair with elite British mountaineer Joe Tasker, who perished with his climbing partner Peter Boardman while attempting Everest's then-unclimbed Northeast Ridge in 1982. She relives her experiences, first within the hard-partying mountaineering scene and then during her long journey to understanding and acceptance of the tragedy that cost her the man she loved. She gives us an insider's view of the life of a world-class mountaineer and recounts her deeply moving pilgrimage with Boardman's widow across Tibet, a journey that retraced Tasker and Boardman's steps to their abandoned Advance Base Camp at 21,000 feet on Everest.
Customer Reviews:
THE LONG GOODBYE..........2006-04-26
What happens to the loved ones of mountaineers who perish while seeking to climb higher peaks or pioneer new routes on challenging mountains? The author attempts to answer this question with her well written and deeply personal account.
The author was intimately involved in the mountaineering world of the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. At the time she was in the throes of an intense love affair with Joe Trasker, the British climber who perished in 1982 with his regular climbing partner, Peter Boardman, while attempting to climb the then unclimbed Northeast ridge of Everest.
The author offers an intriguing, birds-eye view into the tight circle of the mountaineering elite through her relationship with Joe Trasker. The book, however, is not about climbing, per se. It is more of a personal catharsis of her relationship with Joe Trasker.
Still, this makes for an interesting read. The book is divided into two parts. The first concerns itself with the Joe that was living. The second part concerns itself with the Joe that had perished.
The first part chronicles their relationship, which was intense. It also seemed to be a little one sided. The author makes it fairly clear to the reader that Joe Trasker did not seem to have the same commitment to the relationship that the author seems to have had. Her reluctance to let the relationship go appears to have been based more upon what the relationship could have been, rather than upon what it actually was. As they say, love is blind.
The second part of the book chronicles her coming to terms with his death. She does this by joining up with Peter Boardman's widow, Hilary, and setting off on a journey to Tibet and, ultimately, to Everest in an attempt to connect to Joe one final time, as well as to seek closure to a part of her life that was no more.
Sensitively written and finely drawn, her pain is palpable and her story moving. It is, above all, a fitting tribute to Joe Trasker, the man who inspired such devotion.
Lost Love.......2001-11-13
Lost Love
Fragile Edge: A Personal Portrait of Loss on Everest
Reviewed by Laura Drury
One rainy day, I curled up on the couch with a steaming cup of coffee and Maria Coffey's book, Fragile Edge, intending to spend a couple of pleasurable hours reading. As it happened, I did not stop after a couple of hours. I read the whole book that day.
From the beginning I knew that Joe Tasker, her lover and well-known British mountain-climber, had died in a climbing accident on Everest and that this had affected her deeply. Even though I knew the end of the story, Maria's conversational style of storytelling kept me glued to my seat. It was as if she were sitting in my living room, telling me all the details of her lost love.
Even so, Coffey's book is not a tragedy. It's a vicarious peek into a life of thrilling uneasiness, alternating with periods of intense passion. It is the story of how one woman coped with the strain of "the unseen menace, dormant but stirring." Maria described herself as "a climber's girlfriend, left at home, watching for mail". The many farewells were difficult for her. "There was always that wrenching in the gut when he walked away and three months of uncertainty stretched ahead like a tunnel with no light at the end." But when he returned from his dangerous expeditions, remembers Coffey, "there would be a resurgence of feeling between us, an excitement as fresh and keen as when we were first together".
This is also the story of Maria Coffey's and Hilary Rhodes' (Boardman's wife) month long trip to the advance base camp of their loved ones' last climb. They did it to find closure and say goodbye as they left mementos at a memorial cairn that had been erected for the two lost climbers. They planted a little garden of edelweiss and mosses. They mourned and grieved, then laughed and sang with their Chinese hosts. They came to terms with their loss and made peace with Everest. They decided that regretting was of no use.
Fragile Edge gives the average person insight into the world of serious mountaineering. "I was in love with a man who courted death, whose life made more sense to him if he pushed its limits," observed Coffey. In Joe Tasker's own words, "I sometimes wonder why I can't be content with Sunday rock climbs." The fatality rate among high-altitude mountaineers is supposedly one in ten. It is a world that most of us observe from the safety of our less-than-dangerous lives.
THE LONG GOODBYE..........2001-06-04
What happens to the loved ones of mountaineers who perish while seeking to climb higher peaks or pioneer new routes on challenging mountains? The author attempts to answer this question with her well written and deeply personal account.
The author was intimately involved in the mountaineering world of the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. At the time she was in the throes of an intense love affair with Joe Trasker, the British climber who perished in 1982 with his regular climbing partner, Peter Boardman, while attempting to climb the then unclimbed Northeast ridge of Everest.
The author offers an intriguing, birdseye view into the tight circle of the mountaineering elite through her relationship with Joe Trasker. The book, however, is not about climbing, per se. It is more of a personal catharsis of her relationship with Joe Trasker.
Still, this makes for an interesting read. The book is divided into two parts. The first concerns itself with the Joe that was living. The second part concerns itself with the Joe that had perished.
The first part chronicles their relationship, which was intense. It also seemed to be a little one sided. The author makes it fairly clear to the reader that Joe Trasker did not seem to have the same commitment to the relationship that the author seems to have had. Her reluctance to let the relationship go appears to have been based more upon what the relationship could have been, rather than upon what it actually was. As they say, love is blind.
The second part of the book chronicles her coming to terms with his death. She does this by joining up with Peter Boardman's widow, Hilary, and setting off on a journey to Tibet and, ultimately, to Everest in an attempt to connect to Joe one final time, as well as to seek closure to a part of her life that was no more.
Sensitively written and finely drawn, her pain is palpable and her story moving. It is, above all, a fitting tribute to Joe Trasker, the man who inspired such devotion.
A book for the "other half".......2000-07-18
The most rewarding aspect in reading this book was the insight into what it is like to bethe partner of someone with such a single minded focus that it surpasses everything. I am that person, and it made me think twice!
It doesn't matter which one reads it first as long as you both read it!
For those left behind.......2000-05-17
This is a very good book, presenting a very different perspective on mountaineering. This is the impact that the sport / lifestyle has on those at home - the loved ones.
Maria Coffey provides a frank account of her life in and around the hard-partying, high stakes lifestyle of the British climbing community in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She falls in love with Joe Tasker, who disappeared on Mt Everest in 1982 with Pete Boardman. They were part of the British team attempting the east north east ridge ascent. Chris Bonington was part of that team.
After their death, Maria, and Hilary, Boardman's widow undertake their own journey to Tibet - seeking resolution, answers, closeness to their lovers...
She is very frank about the nature of her relationship with Tasker and her fears, his shortcomings as a partner etc. The second part is about the journey Maria takes, both physical, and emotional in dealing with the loss of a partner.
In a way, it seems Hilary was better able to deal with the emotional trauma because of the surety of her relationship with Boardman. Maria and Joe had yet to make a long-term commitment.
A frank and revealing and very personal story. If you are addicted to Everest and mountaineering books (as I am) this is a worthy one to add to the collection.
Customer Reviews:
Superb Climbing story.......2005-05-05
For many years Chris Bonington was one of the leading organizers of British climbing expeditions and a superb climber in his own right. He wrote a whole series of books around his expeditions, all of them well worth reading of you like these kind of books. In "Everest the Hard Way" he leads a team that successfully climbs to the top via the South West Face. This was back in August 1975, and it was (and is) a pretty amazing story. There are some great descriptions of the climb, the camps, the preparation, the personalities of the climbers. I picked up this one when it was first published and highly recommend it! I've been to Base Camp myself, looked at the mountain, and there's no way I'd be trying it, even the easy way! But I don't mind reading about it!
The climbing team that Bonington put together for this expeiditon reads like a whos' who of British climbing in the 70's - and sadly, a number of them later died in climbing accidents. This particular expedition lost one climber, Mick Burke, in a summit bid. Basically, they climbed the south-west face of Everest, the steepest and highest face in the world, including the sheer 1000 ft "Rock Band" at 26,000 ft. They put up 6 camps, the highest just above the Rock Band at 27,300 ft and in one of the summit attempts, 2 members of the team successfuly bivouaced out on the South Summit.
The books got a great collection of photos, like most of Bonington's books do, as well as a huge series of appendices (150 pages out of the 350 page book) on the organisational, logistical and other aspects of the expedition. Like all Bonington's books, it's well written, descriptive, and conveys the challenges, both physical and mental, that the climbing team faced. Published in 1976, it's still, 30 years on, a really good read about a climbing team that took on one of the toughest climbs in the world and suceeded.
Definitely a classic.......2001-03-27
This is the expedition book about the first ascent of the difficult Southwest Face route. Bonington's own writing, a little dry, is supplemented by interesting excerpts from the diaries of his teammates, including Pete Boardman, who as always writes beautifully. This is the ascent on which Mick Burke was lost. Overall, though not quite among the very best of mountaineering books, this is a classic and belongs on all shelves. The photos included capture the bleakness and mystery of the terrain and the precarious box-tent camps beautifully.
The definitive handbook on Everest mountaineering!.......1999-07-23
I first read this book as a young boy. I was enthralled by the personal accounts from the climbers that took part in the expedition, and by Bonnington's writing style.
Each time I have read it, I gain my respect--anew--for the men who leave the comforts of home and civilization to brave the roof of the world. Of all of the accounts of Everest expeditions, this is by far the best. I especially enjoy the section on logistics. Having been a climber for many years, I enjoy seeing how other people "do it."
Another classic.......1998-11-16
The story of the British expedition to the Southwest face of Everest by the expedition leader Chris Bonington. The story is well told and very interesting. Bonington intermingles his own thoughts with the views of other members of the team. One of the better books on an Everest expedition I have read. I found it much more interesting then Tom Hornbein's "The West Ridge." Bonington includes many Appendix sections, almost half the book, on the logistics of the expedition. You could run your own expedition by just reading the appendixes. A classic in the Everest pantheon.
A classic.......1998-11-07
The story of the British expedition to the Southwest face of Everest by the expedition leader Chris Bonington. The story is well told and very interesting. Bonington intermingles his own thoughts with the views of other members of the team. One of the better books on an Everest expedition I have read. I found it much more interesting then Tom Hornbein's "The West Ridge." Bonington includes many Appendix sections, almost a third of the book, on the logistics of the expedition. You could run your own expedition by just reading the appendixes. A classic in the Everest genre.
Book Description
May 29, 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of the first climbing of Mount Everest. Chris Bonington was the first to scale Everest 'the hard way' - by the south-west ridge - and he has taken part in three other expeditions. No other mountaineer, writer or photographer has as much experience of Everest. His last climb, in 1985 at 50, was a personal summit. Here he tells the story of his attempts on Everest, the triumphs and the tragedies and the changes that have come to the mountain area he loves. The result is an absorbing first-hand account of one man's obsession with a mountain.
Average customer rating:
- The Ultimate Everest Expedition Book
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Everest South West Face
Sir Chris Bonington
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0340169729 |
Customer Reviews:
The Ultimate Everest Expedition Book.......2000-06-12
what can be said about this book ?
I am lucky enough to have owned this since it was first published. It revolves around Bonningtons second big everest expedition, against the South West Face of Everest, which at that time had never been climbed.
In 72 he led a team to try to climb this face which failed due to high winds and the extreme cold. In 75 (This book) he returned with better equipment and started much earlier in the seasion.
This expedition was a true 'seige' climb, on a totally unclimbed route. Climbers would head up to the front for their three or four days, manage to lay a thousand feet of rope and then retreat back to base to recover.
The writing in this book must be Bonnington's best with a lot of real emotion. The book contains a huge amount of very good quality photos.
If you are interested in Everest in anyway then this is required reading...
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- A history of Bonington
- Historic data, some uninteresting writing
- Boring
- Good read with some major flaws
- Riveting, moving, clearly and artfully written...
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The Boys of Everest: Chris Bonington and the Tragedy of Climbing's Greatest Generation, Library Edition
Clint Willis
Manufacturer: Blackstone Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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Customer Reviews:
A history of Bonington.......2007-06-04
As many others have mentions this book is a great read for anyone interested in the Bonington period of climbing. Clint Willis does a great job of detailing the events. Although, I did find his musing on what members were thinking right before death annoying. This is not a light read, and not to be confused with a typical adventure book.
Historic data, some uninteresting writing.......2007-06-02
I have read about 6 mountain climbing books in the last 12 months. This one was the hardest to get through. I gave this book 3 stars, but at points I wanted to give it 2 stars because the writing made me so angry.
You should read this book if:
* You are really in to the history of mountain climbing
* You don't mind slogging through some boring writing especially in the first 200 pages.
Learning about the people in the book was good and I liked how we got to understand what they were feeling at times on the mountain. The stories about climbing the bigger mountains like Everest and Annapurna held my attention better. Here are the issues I had with the book.
1. There are not enough pictures of the mountains climbed (even though the author states that photographers were hired for many of the expeditions).
2. There are no drawings of the mountains that indicate the routes taken and locations of the camps and locations of extraordinary events. This makes it difficult to visualize where the climbers are on the mountain.
3. The title "The Boys of Everest" did not make much sense to me as some of the men did not even climb Everest and they did not climb it that often. There were so many other mountains climbed in the book, I don't know why Everest was singled out.
4. The subtitle does not make sense either. "...the Tragedy of Climbing's Greatest Generation". Although there are many tragedies described in the book, it's not clear what the true Tragedy is especially considering that climbing high mountains is dangerous and people do sometimes die doing it. The "Greatest Generation" was also not supported. Although many of the climbers did seem great. I had no reference to other climbers or generations of climbers to compare to.
5. The author gets mixed reviews for describing the actual climbing. In the first 200 pages, I often found myself falling asleep when the climbers were climbing. It seemed like there was too much fine detail about how people were moving and what equipment they were using and not enough general detail like "the climbers are at 20,000 feet and have 4,000 feet to go, they will need 2 more days to get used to this altitude."
6. It seems like the author basically left out describing the affects of altitude on these expeditions. In the other books I've read it seems to be a big deal and often what determines if you make it to the top is if your body can adjust to the altitude, but the author did not talk about the affects of altitude on the climbers that much.
7. At times I would have liked to have know if the information was coming directly from a climber's journal or if the author was piecing things together in his own way. When the author described what the characters were thinking before they died you knew that there was no way the author or anyone could know that information, so it made me wonder what else he was making up.
I enjoyed getting the information from this book, but thought it was a really weird read compared to the other mountain climbing books I have read.
Boring.......2007-05-07
I have had a very hard time getting interested in this book. Other mountain climbing books I have read are spellbinding, but this one is definitely not.
Good read with some major flaws.......2007-03-19
There are a lot of great things about this book: it's certainly well-written, it deals with loss and with death as well as with the motives that draw climbers to these mountains, and it intersperses the fascinating history of postwar British climbing with gripping descriptions of the actual climbs. It suffers from two flaws, tho', one small, one big. The small is that it has no maps; unless you're familiar with these mountains, you're left guessing ascent routes (these matter a great deal, since a large part of what Bonington's generation did was pioneer new routes up classic mountains). The larger problem, as the Publishers Weekly points out, is that it's written very internally; we get a lot of inside-the-climber's-head and especially what-they-are-thinking-as-they-die moments that are based on... what? The acknowledgments thank Bonington for giving the author two mornings; this book is not based much on firsthand interviews etc., so how could Willis have this information? Since all of the internal dialogue/deaththoughts sound exactly the same, it's a fair bet that they're Willis' projections-- but he's a journalist, and while a fair climber, certainly not even close to being a member of the group he so fervently chronicles. In the end, I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that I was reading Willis' own projections of his motives and thoughts of climbing onto a group of men very different from him, and in their most vulnerable moments-- as they climbed, and as they died. Like Krakauer's Into Thin Air, a book that tells a great mountain story, but in the end is far too much about the author, in a way that both seems intrusive and perhaps gets in the way of the story he wants to be telling.
Riveting, moving, clearly and artfully written..........2007-01-09
The Boys of Everest is all of these things. As a college student with very little experience with climbing or with climbing literature, I was surprised at how easily I followed the descriptions of climbing techniques and strategies that help drive this story. Climbing technicalities never got in the way of telling a great story, which was always Willis's first priority. I imagine any avid climber would devour this book, but the audience of "Boys" is by no means restricted to mountain climbers or even armchair adventurers. First and foremost, "Boys" is a story about a dynamic group of driven, complex, at times heroic, often troubled and truly singular men. Willis's ability to make the reader feel at different times compassion, anger, admiration and even love for these boys of Everest is astounding.
"Boys" is both an epic and a page turner, a scrupulously researched piece of journalism and artfully crafted story. It is a wonderful representative of its genre and of contemporary literature in general. Willis has achieved the rare and enviable. "Boys" is a one of a kind story.
Average customer rating:
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EVEREST
CHRIS BONINGTON
Manufacturer: HODDER AND STOUGHTON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S3MZU2 |
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