Boys of Everest

The exploits of mountaineering s most colorful band of adventurersThe Boys of Everest by Clint Willis tells the gripping story of Bonington s Boys, 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 heartbreaking loss. Chris Bonington s inner circle included a dozen of mountaineering s most legendary figures Don Whillans, John Harlin, Dougal Haston, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker, and others who together gave birth to a new brand of climbing. They took increasingly challenging risks on now-legendary expeditions to the world s most fearsome peaks and they paid an enormous price. Most of them died in the mountains, leaving behind the hardest question of all: was it worth it? Willis's classy style turns reportage into literature . . . Bonington's Boys come across as raw, anguished souls . . . As Willis describes in his artful prose, their suffering is not just a means to an end (the summit), it is an end. The New York Times A gripping adventure saga . . . Publishers Weekly A death-haunted saga of the scalers of heaven . . . Kirkus Reviews Mr. Willis tells a story that is gripping and poignant and even appalling . . . The Wall Street Journal