Author: Lionel Terray
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 1680510843
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
"If my library was to somehow catch fire and I could only save one book, the long out of print Conquistadors of the Useless, by Lionel Terray, would be it." -- Explore magazine "The finest mountaineering narrative ever written." -- David Roberts, author of Mountain of My Fear * One of National Geographic Adventure's "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time" * The story of ground-breaking climbs told with insight and wit * A mountaineering classic brought back into print Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains. This biography of Lionel Terry is filled with first-time feats and acts of bravery in the face of unspeakable odds. He climbed with legends such as Maurice Herzog, Gaston Rebuffat, and Louis Lachenal. He made first ascents in the Alps, Alaska, the Andes, and the Himalaya. Terray's gripping story captures the energy of an optimistic world shaking off the restraints of war and austerity. It's a mountaineering classic.
Author: Joshua Isard
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
ISBN: 1935955543
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Average suburban middle manager Nathan's life starts to unravel around him as his wife goes baby crazy, his friend wants to climb Everest, and he lends a copy of "Cat's Cradle" to a local teenage girl.
Author: Werner Herzog
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061575534
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
One of the most revered filmmakers of our time, Werner Herzog wrote this diary during the making of Fitzcarraldo, the lavish 1982 film that tells the story of a would-be rubber baron who pulls a steamship over a hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. Later, Herzog spoke of his difficulties when making the film, including casting problems, reshoots, language barriers, epic clashes with the star, and the logistics of moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Hailed by critics around the globe, the film went on to win Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at Cannes. Conquest of the Useless, Werner Herzog's diary on his fever dream in the Amazon jungle, is an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a genius during the making of one of his greatest achievements.
Author: Erhard Loretan
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 168051007X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
• Loretan is often credited with bringing fast-and-light style to the highest mountains • New foreword by bestselling writer David Roberts On October 5, 1995, Erhard Loretan became the third person to climb all fourteen 8000-meter peaks, and the second to climb them without supplemental oxygen. He also became one of only a handful of individuals to climb Everest via the Hornbein Couloir; he and Jean Troillet completed the roundtrip climb in only 43 hours. An influential climber, Loretan’s story has never before been told in English. He writes with humor, often deprecating his own accomplishments, and he is shockingly honest: On Cho Oyu, for instance, his climbing partner, Pierre-Alain Steiner, fell hundreds of meters. Loretan called out to what he assumed would be a corpse. Unexpectedly, Steiner called back. Loretan writes, knowing that what he is about to share is terrible, that he felt no joy on hearing his friend’s voice because rescue was impossible in so remote a place. This title is part of our LEGENDS AND LORE series. Click here > to learn more.
Author: Mark Twight
Publisher: The Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 0898869196
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
* Mark Twight's collected works, some never before published in North America * Includes dramatic black and white mountaineering photos * Features brand new epilogues to all of the stories They call him Dr. Doom. Raving and kicking against mediocrity, his anger and pain simmer close to the surface. He speaks and writes the language of the punk music that defined him. He is extreme alpinist Mark Twight, and he doesn't back down from the truth. He's a one-man literary punk band. If you have any doubt, here comes his knockout punch: the only collection of writing Twight swears he'll ever publish. Kiss or Kill: Confessions of a Serial Climber is raw, unfiltered Twight. These author's cut are the real deal, not the homogenized fluff offered up by magazine editors who are often unwilling to offend. Twight's words make it clear that climbing is only distantly about the summit. Several of these pieces are new to U.S. readers. Twight edited all of the selections and appended each with a current author's note; confessing his inspiration, events that followed, and lessons learned (or not learned, some might say). It adds up to a frightfully lucid look into Twight's personal life as both man and hardcore alpine climber. The dissection scares me sometimes... Whether railing against the spinelessness of American siege-style mountaineering, admitting addiction to pushing the bounds of the possible, or reveling in his ability to cut away anything in life that holds him back, Twight never blinks. Along the way, there is the drama of new and epic routes, unbreakable bonds between climbing partners, and Twight's evolution as a climber and a man. He tells every story in a unique, in-your-face style. Kiss or Kill is not an easy read. It may scare some readers-but that's the point. "I want this book to help you recognize your own anger, which will help you understand mine", says Twight. "Somewhere out there somebody understands these words and knows they matter. They were written in blood, learned by heart."
Author: Matthew Restall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197537316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
An update of a popular work that takes on the myths of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, featuring a new afterword. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest reveals how the Spanish invasions in the Americas have been conceived and presented, misrepresented and misunderstood, in the five centuries since Columbus first crossed the Atlantic. This book is a unique and provocative synthesis of ideas and themes that were for generations debated or perpetuated without question in academic and popular circles. The 2003 edition became the foundation stone of a scholarly turn since called The New Conquest History. Each of the book's seven chapters describes one "myth," or one aspect of the Conquest that has been distorted or misrepresented, examines its roots, and explodes its fallacies and misconceptions. Using a wide array of primary and secondary sources, written in a scholarly but readable style, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest explains why Columbus did not set out to prove the world was round, the conquistadors were not soldiers, the native Americans did not take them for gods, Cortés did not have a unique vision of conquest procedure, and handfuls of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. Conquest realities were more complex--and far more fascinating--than conventional histories have related, and they featured a more diverse cast of protagonists-Spanish, Native American, and African. This updated edition of a key event in the history of the Americas critically examines the book's arguments, how they have held up, and why they prompted the rise of a New Conquest History.
Author: Bernadette McDonald
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 1594857571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
CLICK HERE to download the first chapter from Freedom Climbers (Provide us with a little information and we'll send your download directly to your inbox) "One of the most important mountaineering books to be written for many years." —Boardman-Tasker Prize See this book trailer for Freedom Climbers made by RMB Books, its publisher in Canada, where the cover is slightly different from the Mountaineers Books U.S. edition * Behind the Iron Curtain, Cold War mountaineers found freedom on the world's highest peaks—and paid an awful price to achieve it * Winner of the Boardman-Tasker Prize, Banff Grand Prize, and American Alpine Club Literary Award Freedom Climbers tells the story of Poland's truly remarkable mountaineers who dominated Himalayan climbing during the period between the end of World War II and the start of the new millennium. The emphasis here is on their "golden age" in the 1980s and 1990s when, despite the economic and social baggage of their struggling country, Polish climbers were the first to tackle the world's highest mountains during winter, including the first winter ascents on seven of the world's fourteen 8000-meter peaks: Everest, Manaslu, Dhaulagiri, Cho Oyu, Kanchenjunga, Annapurna, and Lhotse. Such successes, however, came at a serious cost: 80 percent of Poland's finest high-altitude climbers died on the high mountains during the same period they were pursuing these first ascents. Award-winning writer Bernadette McDonald addresses the social, political, and cultural context of this golden age, and the hardships of life under Soviet rule. Polish climbers, she argues, were so tough because their lives at home were so tough—they lost family members to World War II and its aftermath and were so much more poverty-stricken than their Western counterparts that they made much of their own climbing gear. While Freedom Climbers tells the larger story of an era, McDonald shares charismatic personal narratives such as that of Wanda Rutkiewicz, expected to be the first woman to climb all 8000-meter peaks until she disappeared on Kanchenjunga in 1992; Jerzy Kukuczka, who died in a fall while attempting the south face of Lhotse; and numerous other renowned climbers including Voytek Kurtyka, Artur Hajzer, Andrej Zawaka, and Krzysztof Wielicki. This is a fascinating window into a different world, far-removed from modernity yet connected by the strange allure of the mountain landscape, and a story of inspiring passion against all odds. This title is part of our LEGENDS AND LORE series. Click here > to learn more.
Author: Doug Robinson
Publisher: Moving Over Stone
ISBN: 9780989855112
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
Descriptive inquiry into the neurochemistry of extreme sports.
Author: Charles Houston
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493050257
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
When eleven climbers died on K2 on August 1, 2008, it was a stark reminder that the world's second-highest mountain has, for more than a century, been regarded as the most difficult and dangerous of all—for every four people who reach the top, one dies in the attempt. K2, The Savage Mountain tells the dramatic story of the 1953 American expedition, led by Charles S. Houston, when a combination of terrible storms and illness stopped the team short of the 28,251-foot summit. Then on the descent, tragedy struck, and how the climbers made it back to safety is renowned in the annals of climbing. K2, The Savage Mountain captures this sensational tale with an unmatched power that has earned this book its place as one of the classics of mountaineering literature.
Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767932609
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 354
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Book Description
A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain, by the bestselling authors of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the Top “Gripping . . . reveals a good deal about the rarefied noble-gonzo world of high-altitude mountaineering.”—The New York Times Ed Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers, explores the remarkable history of K2 and of those who have attempted to conquer it. At the same time, he probes the mountain's most memorable sagas in order to illustrate lessons about the fundamental questions mountaineering raises—questions of risk, ambition, loyalty to one's teammates, self-sacrifice, and the price of glory. Viesturs knows the mountain firsthand. He and renowned alpinist Scott Fischer climbed it in 1992 and got caught in an avalanche that sent them sliding to almost certain death before Ed managed to get into a self-arrest position with his ice ax and stop both his fall and Scott's. Focusing on seven of the mountain's most dramatic campaigns, from his own troubled ascent to the 2008 tragedy, Viesturs crafts an edge-of-your-seat narrative that climbers and armchair travelers alike will find unforgettably compelling. With photographs from Viesturs's personal collection and from historical sources, this is the definitive account of the world's ultimate mountain, and of the lessons that can be gleaned from struggling toward its elusive summit.
