Climbing higher

The book on Everest

You saw the movie (the number to call for the necessary reservations is 617-723-2500, and you may need to be patient), you walked through the exhibit -- now it's time to read the book. Broughton Coburn's Everest: Mountain Without Mercy (National Geographic Society, 256 pages, $35) is as spectacular as the film, with many images from Breashears's movie and a much fuller account of how Everest was made, how the IMAX team reached the top, and why Breashears's team emerged unscathed and successful whereas the commercial teams of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer met with disaster. Not the least of its treasures is the series of interspersed, separately written articles: "The Elusive Height of Everest," "The Great Stupa of Bodhnath," "The Sherpas," "What Happens at Altitude," "Where the Himalaya Come From," and much more.

For those who want to know more about the Black May of 1996, there's Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air (Villard, 296 pages, $25). Already a bestseller, this engrossing, terrifying piece of journalism from a writer who climbed to the top with Rob Hall's expedition is as lucid and objective as you can expect given the hypoxic state of the participants. The Climb, by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt (St. Martin's Press, 256 pages, $25), is more narrowly focused, being dedicated to justifying the controversial actions of Boukreev, who was one of Fischer's guides (despite his attitude problems, he performed the best of the guides on Chomolungma that day), but it points up the sometimes huge discrepancies in the accounts of what happened. Even off the mountain -- just compare Into Thin Air's account of a phone call between Krakauer and climber Martin Adams (pages 219-220) with The Climb's (pages 214-215).

The Mountaineers, a Seattle press, has a pair of gorgeous books on the history of climbing the world's two highest mountains: Everest: The History of the Himalayan Giant and K2: Challenging the Sky (144 pages and $35 each). Cloudcap, also in Seattle, has Reinhold Messner: All Eight-Thousanders (248 pages, $40), the story of how the world's greatest mountaineer has climbed all of the earth's 14 peaks over 8000 meters, without oxygen, and, my favorite, Over the Himalaya (108 pages, $40) -- aerial views of the world's highest range. When I was a child, I'd spend hours looking at the Himalaya in National Geographic: each peak had its own shape, its own personality. Now they have mystifying new names like Chogori and Jo'öyu Ri and Gangchhendsönga, but they're every bit as magical.

Finally, the Museum of Science gift shop has a home-video version of Everest. It's not the IMAX experience, but the warmth, the humor, and the courage of Breashears's team still come through.

-- J.G.

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