The Boys of Everest

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What to expect

This gripping account of courage, achievement, and heartbreaking loss tells the story of Bonington's Boys, a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest's first ascent. The boyish, fanatically driven Chris Bonington's inner circle included a dozen of the most renowned climbers, who took increasingly terrible risks on now legendary expeditions to the world's most fearsome peaks, and paid an enormous price. Most of them died in the mountains, leaving behind the hardest question of all: was it worth it?

Based on interviews with surviving climbers and others, as well as five decades of journals, expedition accounts, and letters, The Boys of Everest provides the closest thing to an answer that we will 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.

Critics Review

  • “Riveting, detailed, and full of insight…a refreshingly honest perspective on the tragic, selfish nature of our sport.”

    Climbing magazine

  • “[A] gripping adventure saga…of life spent teetering on the edge of the abyss.”

    Publishers Weekly

  • “A dramatic and romantic look at the greatest generation of climbers.”

    Library Journal

  • “The writing is poetic at times, and Adams does it justice along with excellent German, French, British, and Scottish accents…and pacing that doesn’t let the technical details drag the story down…Devoted outdoor adventurers will love it.”

    Kliatt

  • “A death-haunted saga of the scalers of heaven…The same class and caliber [as] Into Thin Air.”

    Kirkus Reviews

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