The depth of feeling here and the writers’ hard-earned experience elevate this volume above many other books in the popular...
The world’s most widely known high-altitude mountaineer reflects on his Everest career.
If you had to pick only one advantage for this fourth memoir from Viesturs (The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna—the World's Deadliest Peak, 2011, etc.), it’s that the man knows the territory intimately. These in-depth stories about and reflections on Everest by the author—who was first to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000-plus–meter peaks (by happy accident, by his own admission)—are bolstered by world-class assists from acclaimed adventure writer Roberts (Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration, 2013, etc.). Viesturs wisely shies away from Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air territory (“Is there anything new to say about the disaster on Mount Everest in the spring of 1996? I doubt it”). Instead, the author intertwines the still-gripping stories of his summits between 1987 and 2009 with a critical eye on other legendary exploits, from the great mystery of the 1924 expedition to unique challenges presented by certain routes to unexplained hoaxes through the years. In the process, Viesturs unearths some interesting tidbits that may be well-known to his community but new to laymen. The author, who has been lauded for his compassion and assistance to other climbers, also brings an unexpected attribute: attitude. One question that continually surfaces is whether he believes George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made it to the summit before their deaths in 1924, and Viesturs is brutally candid. “My answer is this: It doesn’t matter whether Mallory and Irvine got to the summit. It’s irrelevant. They didn’t make it back down.” This is followed by the even terser admonishment: “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting back down is mandatory.”
The depth of feeling here and the writers’ hard-earned experience elevate this volume above many other books in the popular “snow and ice” genre.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-9473-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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