Книги. Художественная литература. Учебники и пособия.

Mark Houston, Kathy Cosley

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Mark F. Twight

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Reinhold Messner

World-famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner's account of his first ascent on Everest, made without supplemental oxygen, and considered to be an impossible feat at the time. Reinhold Messner with his partner Peter Habeler was the first to climb Everest without the aid of supplemental oxygen. In this riveting retelling of his climb, Messner says, "Everest by fair means-that is the human dimension, and that is what interests me . . . In reaching for an oxygen cylinder, a climber degrades Everest. . . . A climber who doesn't rely on his own strength and skills, but on apparatus and drugs, deceives himself." In this mountaineering classic, Messner recounts the thoughts of a mountaineer during the climb of his life. Messner's compelling climbing chronicle conveys the exhaustion, despair and exhilaration of mountaineering in the death zone; interleafed with spectacular color photographs. A must-have for any reader of adventure narratives.

Reinhold Messner

Language Notes Text: English (translation) Original Language: German

David Breashears

Possibly the most interesting aspect of this book is how improbable it seems that Breashears (Mountain Without Mercy) ever lived to write it. An accomplished alpinist, Breashears not only recounts his numerous, dicey ascents of the planets peaks but also explores his motivation for doing so. Though he is an experienced cinematographer whose past employers range from PBS to Hollywood, Breashears is most widely known as the director of the IMAX film Everest. While filming the movie, Breashears and his crew were fortunate to avoid the unforgiving storm at the mountains summit that led to the death of eight people and was chronicled in Jon Krakauers Into Thin Air. Breashears uses that tragic season on Everest as a frame for a personal memoir. The focus is on how he stepped out of the shadow of his violent military father and discovered his passions for climbing and filmmaking. Some of his psychology is simplistic, but there is no doubt that Breashears is as serious about understanding his...

Roberto Mantovani, Kurt Diemberger

The mighty, inaccessible peaks of Mt. Everest have always posed an irresistible challenge to those motivated to test their mettle against the harsh conditions. Packed with spectacular archival and specially commissioned photographs, this book examines the history of Everest mountaineering through thrilling journey reports. The authors describe in detail the planning required for such a monumental climb and the technical means used in the Everest climbing adventures of modern mountaineering. The narrative recounts the various chapters in the mountaineering history of Everest, from the first reconnaissance in 1921 to the first victorious climb and the accomplishments-and failures-of recent decades. We meet the ambitious adventurers, revel in their triumphs, and experience the tragedies as well. Throughout the book the lively text and vivid photographs transport readers on a journey they will never forget.

Andrew Selters, Andy Selters

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Joe Simpson

"Concise and yet packed with detail, Touching the Void, Joe Simpson's harrowing account of near-death in the Peruvian Andes, is a compact tour de force that wrestles with issues of bravery, friendship, physical endurance, the code of the mountains, and the will to live. Simpson dedicates the book to his climbing partner, Simon Yates, and to "those friends who have gone to the mountains and have not returned". What is it that compels certain individuals to willingly seek out the most inhospitable climate on earth? To risk their lives in an attempt to leave footprints where few or none have gone before? Simpson's vivid narrative of a dangerous climbing expedition will convince even the most die-hard couch potato that such pursuits fall within the realm of the sane. As the author struggles ever higher, readers learn of the mountain's awesome power, the beautiful - and sometimes deadly - sheets of blue glacial ice, and the accomplishment of a successful ascent. And then catastrophe:...

Matt Dickinson

YA-Dickinson, who was hired by a high-adventure company to produce a movie about an ascent of Everest by a major British film star, is not a professional high-altitude climber. However, he is a fine writer with a style somewhere between the tight and intense passages of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air (Villard) and the ponderous, technical treatment in Anatoli Boukreev's much longer The Climb (St. Martin's, both 1997). He writes of actually making it to the summit up the North Face with a simplicity and wonder lacking in Everest accounts written by those who spend their lives climbing the world's highest peaks. As a filmmaker, he gives the book visual power. This title will hold readers in its icy grip from beginning to end.

Anatoli Boukreev

Born in Mayak, Russia, in 1958, Boukreev became one of the world's greatest mountain climbers. But while his accomplishments included 21 ascents of 11 of the world's 14 highest mountains, Boukreev became known to the general public only after his work as a guide on a disastrous Mt. Everest climb was described in less than glowing terms in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Boukreev's coauthored bestselling account of the tragedy, The Climb, was an attempt to set the record straight. This new posthumous collection is a series of narratives Boukreev wrote between 1987 and his death climbing Annapurna in 1997; it stands as an excellent addition to The Climb and as one of the most revealing and tough-minded descriptions of the life of a mountain climber. Three themes dominate the essays: the spiritual beauty and power of the mountains, the increasing commercialization of mountain climbing and the necessity for rigorous training by people (pros and newcomers alike) who want to climb the big...