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The Boys of Everest: Chris Bonington and the Tragedy of Climbing's Greatest Generation | 
 enlarge | Author: Clint Willis
Publisher: Carroll & Graf
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $7.55
You Save: $20.40 (73%)
New (5) Used (8) from $4.77
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 803147
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 536
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.7 x 1.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
ASIN: B000XKO8TQ
Publication Date: August 25, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This book tells the story of a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest's first ascent. It is a story of tremendous courage, astonishing achievement and heart-breaking loss. Their leader was the boyish, fanatically driven Chris Bonington. His inner circle — which came to be know as Bonington's Boys — included a dozen who became climbing's greatest generation. Bonington's Boys gave birth to a new brand of climbing. They took increasingly terrible risks on now-legendary expeditions to the world's most fearsome peaks. And they paid an enormous price for their achievements. Most of Bonington's Boys died in the mountains, leaving behind the hardest question of all: Was it worth it? The Boys of Everest, based on interviews with surviving climbers and other individuals, as well as five decades of journals, expedition accounts, and letters, provides the closest thing to an answer that we'll ever have. It offers riveting descriptions of what Bonington's Boys found in the mountains, as well as an understanding of what they lost there.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Tedious and presumptuous... August 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Let me first say that I am an avid reader of climbing literature. As a non-climber, I found the author's description of every piton and carabiner on every climb to be immensely tedious. Likewise the endless sequence of who was in which camp every day and who led every pitch. Climbers who attempt these or similar routes might be enlightened, but I found it rather mind-numbing. I found Willis' suppositions about climbers' thoughts just before death to be banal and presumptuous. After slogging through 315 pages I could no longer feign even the slightest interest and quit reading.
Clint Willis edited the excellent anthology "Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks." He apparently gained no literary insights from any of the fifteen authors whose works he included. Readers wishing to get a feel for what it's like on the mountain should read "Epic" instead. It's a good way to sample the writing style of a variety of climbers, as well. Other excellent choices for climbers and non-climbers alike are "Minus 148 Degrees" by Art Davidson or "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson, and anything by Greg Child.
I gave the book one star for its explanation of the changing politics and policies of climbing in Great Britain after 1953. There were also some good insights into Bonnington's character. But if you want a thrilling read, look elsewhere.
 Great! August 29, 2008
I have recently read "No shortcuts to the top" and I loved that, but this is even better. It details the generation that really made the modern vision of mountain climbers - a bit aloof from the world and somewhat conceited about their business, but motivated by some need to go to the top, and by a harder route to prove something. This era of climbing and exploration is somewhat under-represented or is generalized all to Messner or his cohorts, while this book details so much of what was going on in the high mountains.
Great book!
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."
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