Bee...ends up I am reading a different book than the one I mentioned...OMG....I love this book....great book for First Timers and Wannabees...

One day this last week at work I felt like I just had to get away so on my lunch break I drove down to the Newport Mesa Assistance League Thrift Store to browse all the second hand treasures of others. I always walk by the book section before leaving to see if any titles catch my eye. My last trip I picked up some wonderful books on Hawaii for my upcoming trip. This trip I saw a large hardback book with the words Seven Summits on it for $1.00. What a great find this little treasure is...I can't Put it down. I highly recommend this book.

Seven Summits by Dick Bass & Frank Wells with Rick Ridgeway......

Thank you L-A-R,

I am firmly planted in the "wannaBee" category, so this sounds appealing to me (I seem to have heard of this title)

BTW, if anyone has any great ideas on how we should index our *library*, please speak up!

I just finished the first one, Savage Arena, and I'm glad I bought this. Wow...no, WOW!!! What an incredible person and achievements. Down to earth and honest writing, and I agree, you feel like you're on the mountains with him. Glad I saw this.

I am so delighted you enjoyed it - my all time favorite quote is from that book. Harvey

In some ways, going to the mountains is incomprehensible to many people and inexplicable by those who go. The reasons are difficult to unearth and only with those who are similarly drawn is there no need to try to explain.
Joe Tasker, Savage Arena, page 260 ( in Boardman-Tasker Omnibus)

Bee here is another female writer and 2010 book. Some might consider her an amateur (like many of Everest these days) but a very, very accomplished one at age 61

No Magic Helicopter by Carol Masheter
http://www.amazon.com/No-Magic-Helicopte...copter+masheter

Here was my review -see the top one
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-revi...ostRecentReview

Just finished "WILD" by Cheryl Strayed. How she, as a complete backpack/hiking novice hiked the PCT. A lot of personal insight into her life and why she did what she did, even right down to her last name.
This is a fun, quick read.

Hi Bee, Just stumbled upon this great list of adventure books. Not all about mountaineering, but all areas of adventure. Some I've read. One of my favorites - Kon Tiki.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0404/adventure_books_1-19.html

As for mountaineering, my favorite book has to be "Snow in the Kingdom" by Ed Webster. I have an autographed copy. Lots of great photos, some of which you can see at this link.

http://mtnimagery.com/index.html

John

John, I read Kon Tiki years and years ago. Loved it! I also had another by Heyerdahl, but I can't recall the title.

Thank you John -- all adventures are welcome! (I loved Kon Tiki, too)

I just finished reading "Ada Blackjack" by Jennifer Niven. It's the story of an 1921 Arctic expedition where the only survivor was a young woman, Ada Blackjack. Not only a good story about a woman's strong will to live, but a little bit of a history lesson on international politics regarding the rescue/relief effort.

Harvey, I finished the Boardman Tasker Omnibus while acclimating prior to my last trip into the Sierra. One of the most enjoyable book(s) I've read. What's your next favorite sir? I think it's going to be hard topping this one.

I finished both of these while flying across the country:

Some amazing accounts from an amazing Russian mountaineer:

http://www.amazon.com/Above-Clouds-Diari...natoli+boukreev

Interesting look into the lives, customs, and perspective of the Sherpas and the Pakistani HAPs. There were a lot of gruesome details I didn't know about before like what's really at the Gilkey Memorial at K2's base:

http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Sky-Extraor...ried+in+the+sky

here is Charlie Houston's famous story of when Gilkey died
Houston, Charles and Bates, Robert
K2 the Savage Mountain

this is the definitive biography of Houston.
McDonald, Bernadette
Brotherhood of the Rope. The Biography of Charles Houston.

An interesting accompaniment to the Death in the Grand Canyon book is a 3D map done, based on statistics the book. of fatalities in Grand Canyon. Brilliant cartography and map design. Zooming in and out shows clustered or individual symbols. It's available on the Internet (though not in 3D) at:

http://carto.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/splash/index.html?appid=cf3bdb4febed4c21878c5c3ac720b784
The accompanying tech explanation is interesting if you like that sort of thing... .

I misspent my youth in the very small 2 bookshelf collection of mountaineering (and SF!) books in the San Francisco Main Library. Computers hadn't been invented yet, saving me from being a true geek (and, um, dates):

Annapurna --Herzog
The Last Place On Earth --Huntford
Mawson's Will --Lennard Bickel
Endurance --Shackleton
The West Ridge --Hornbein (one of the first Sierra Club format books -- inspiring a generation of young mountaineers)
The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev (Better written and more honest, I thought, than Krakauer's of the same event).
Touching the Void --Joe Simpson