The Boy Who Conquered Everest

The Boy Who Conquered Everest
Author: Jordan Romero with Katherine Blanc
Publisher: BalboaPress
Total Pages: 74
Release: 2010-07-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1452500037

Jordan Romero was a regular nine-year-old boy. He loved BMX biking, listening to music, hanging out with his friends and family, participating in school activities, and studying nature and reptiles. So why would he want to climb the world’s tallest mountains? What made him decide to try something so dangerous and difficult? It all started when Jordan spotted a map of the famous “Seven Summits,” the tallest mountains on Earth’s seven continents, including massive Mt. Everest—the tallest of all. Jordan could not take his eyes off of that map; his head was filled with thoughts of snow-covered peaks, jagged rocks, billowing white clouds, and deep blue skies. Four years later, Jordan stood and gazed down at those peaks and cloudy skies from the 29,035-foot summit of Mt. Everest. He had reached his goal: to conquer the mightiest of mountains and inspire other kids to dream BIG! How did he do it? This is his story...

The Top of the World

The Top of the World
Author: Steve Jenkins
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2002-04-29
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0547349564

In this stunning picture book, Steve Jenkins takes us to Mount Everest - exploring its history, geography, climate, and culture. This unique book takes readers on the ultimate adventure of climbing the great mountain. Travel along and learn what to pack for such a trek and the hardships one may suffer on the way to the top. Avalanches, frostbite, frigid temperatures, wind, and limited oxygen are just a few of the dangers that make scaling this peak one of the most extreme physical challenges one can experience. To stand on the top of Mount Everest is to stand on top of the world. With informative text and exquisitely detailed cut paper illustrations, Steve Jenkins brings this extreme journey alive for young adventurers.

No Summit Out of Sight

No Summit Out of Sight
Author: Jordan Romero
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1476709629

"The story of Jordan Romero, who at the age of 13 became the youngest person ever to reach the summit of Mount Everest. At age 15, he reached the summits of the world's 7 highest mountains"--

No Barriers

No Barriers
Author: Erik Weihenmayer
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 125008878X

Bestselling author Erik Weihenmayer, who Jon Krakauer calls “an inspiration,” tells the epic story of his latest adventures, including solo kayaking The Colorado River.

Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 318
Release: 1998-11-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0679462716

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray. "A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself. This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I. In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."

Into the Silence

Into the Silence
Author: Wade Davis
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 596
Release: 2011-10-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307700569

The definitive story of the British adventurers who survived the trenches of World War I and went on to risk their lives climbing Mount Everest. On June 6, 1924, two men set out from a camp perched at 23,000 feet on an ice ledge just below the lip of Everest’s North Col. George Mallory, thirty-seven, was Britain’s finest climber. Sandy Irvine was a twenty-two-year-old Oxford scholar with little previous mountaineering experience. Neither of them returned. Drawing on more than a decade of prodigious research, bestselling author and explorer Wade Davis vividly re-creates the heroic efforts of Mallory and his fellow climbers, setting their significant achievements in sweeping historical context: from Britain’s nineteen-century imperial ambitions to the war that shaped Mallory’s generation. Theirs was a country broken, and the Everest expeditions emerged as a powerful symbol of national redemption and hope. In Davis’s rich exploration, he creates a timeless portrait of these remarkable men and their extraordinary times.

The Second Death of George Mallory

The Second Death of George Mallory
Author: Reinhold Messner
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2002-03-27
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780312270759

The legendary mountain climber chronicles the adventures of two of his predecessors, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, and their tragic efforts to scale Mount Everest in 1924.

The Ascent of Everest

The Ascent of Everest
Author: John Hunt Baron Hunt
Publisher: The Mountaineers Books
Total Pages: 238
Release: 1993
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780898863611

Expedition leader John Hunt's account of the first ascent of Mount Everest's summit in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

Everest: The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

Everest: The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
Author: Alexandra Stewart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1547601604

In the late morning of May 29, 1953, the sun was shining brightly and a gentle breeze was blowing on the highest elevation of the world--and two men were there to witness it for the first time ever. Their names were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, and they had ascended Everest. This is the breathtaking story of how two very different, yet equally determined, men battled frost-biting temperatures, tumbling ice rocks, powerful winds, and death-defying ridges to reach the top of the world's highest mountain. Combining fresh and contemporary illustrations by Joe Todd-Stanton with Alexandra Stewart's captivating writing, this unique narrative tells the story of how Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made their mark on the world from birth right up to their final days and the impact they've had on Nepal today.

No Shortcuts to the Top

No Shortcuts to the Top
Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2006-10-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0767926412

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This gripping and triumphant memoir from the author of The Mountain follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time. “From the drama of the peaks, to the struggle of making a living as a professional climber, to the basic how-tos of life at 26,000 feet, No Shortcuts to the Top is fascinating reading.”—Aron Ralston, author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place and subject of the film 127 Hours For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy grail: to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go. A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto, “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs’s odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous and magnificent pursuit.