Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Mountaineeiring History July 14, 2008
If you want to know about the folks that lived to climb and died while doing so, this is the book. Bonington is still alive, but the stories of he and his collegue's climbs are amazing.
The Karma of Climbing May 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Willis' current book (he's edited a number of collected excerpts) was the most intriguing mountaineering book I've read in a long time -- and I've read quite a few, although I myself am an "armchair" climber. Perhaps true mountaineers will find the book wanting for lengthy descriptions of raising funds for the climb; of the travails of arriving at base camp; of the flora, fauna and cultures encountered on the way in, but personally when I read about the extremes of high-altitude climbing, I'm always most attracted to how the alpinists themselves -- as humans -- cope with such extreme conditions. What do they think? Feel? What does this other worldly existence -- for it's nothing like everyday life -- give them that drives them to return, again and again, despite the torments, the cold, the hunger, the closeness to death that almost inevitably accompanies every serious ascent? Willis allows himself some artistic freedom in placing himself in the climbers' boots as they wake to bitter cold; as they jumar up old ropes; as they place weak protection knowing that any failure can lead to their death and possibly the death of their comrades. But this is why I, for one, read about alpinists: they compell themselves to extremes, and Willis -- far better than anyone -- places you alongside these climbers as they unravel, or ignore, the reasons they are high on these mountains, and always destined to return to them.
A Stunning Book! May 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"From the mid 1950's to mid 1980's, Bonington's Boys changed the nature of climbing Mount Everest. The risks they took and the price they paid is unimaginable but told vividly in this stunning book."
 FIlling in the story December 3, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Back in the 1980s, when I was slaving away in grad school, escaping occasionally for a brief hiking trip, or a short cross-country ski outing, I liked to read stories of great expeditions and adventures, on sea and on land. And I think of all the books I read, Chris Bonnington's books of his expeditions were my greatest escape literature. Sitting in my downtown apartment I was transported to the slopes of Everest with Bonnington and his crew, making my way of a narrow rock gully on the face of Everest. When I was out on my skis in the woods, I'd imagine I was working my way through the ice fall, or carrying gear up to advance base camp.
Then in 2000 I read Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air", his personal story of the tragic 1996 Everest expedition, and it stripped away all romance from Himalayan mountaineering; all I was left with was images of pointless death and selfish behavior. I stopped reading mountaineering books. Every trip seemed a pointless risk of human life. Then a few weeks ago I came across "The Boys of Everest" while looking for cross-country ski technique books, and my curiosity was piqued; I bought the book.
Like some of the reviewers, I'm a bit put off by the author's use of imagined interior monologue, especially when depicting the last hours of a climber who disappeared into the mists, never to be seen again. But at the same time, I think Willis does a better job than most writers- including the mountaineers themselves- in explaining exactly why they climb, and why they take such unimaginable risks in pursuit of such intangible rewards. While this doesn't justify the deaths of so many ambitious young men, at the same time it makes them a bit easier to understand.
Some have also faulted the author for his lack of experience in high altitude climbing, and lack of technical detail, or glossing over some important aspect of a given climb. I'm not a climber, and I suspect that most readers won't be, either, and to us, that's not really a fault. There are better books about the specifics of these expeditions written by the climbers themselves, and plenty of books about the techniques of mountaineering. What this book does deliver is a bit of a glimpse intothe lives and the minds of a very select group of men, who changed the face of climbing, and who for a very brief time in the history of the world stood on top of it.
 A history of Bonington June 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
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