Everest : mountain without mercy /

This glossy album of photos and text has two high-interest attributes: it is the companion to an IMAX film slated for 1998 release about an expedition to Everest; and the IMAX filmmakers participated in the May 1996 disaster-and-rescue drama on the mountain, a chronicle of which (Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer [BKL Ap 1 97]) rocketed to first place on best-seller lists. Perhaps the latter fact makes National Geo's marketeers hopeful and tips libraries to inevitably strong demand for the title. The text is descriptive of the film team's reactions to the crisis but is a less compelling read than Into Thin Air; its signal asset is the hundred-plus photos of the earth's most titanic vistas. Alone worth the price of admission, the images allow the armchair alpinist to wonder at the sights both cultural and natural from Katmandu to the summit. Scenes of marketplaces, yak trains, Sherpas, and temples are buttressed by author Coburn's information about propitiation rituals and prayers addressed to mountain deities--not a bad idea before taking on a mountain that kills 20 percent of those who reach the top. Sidebars are varied, summing up the active geology of the Himalaya, the story of survivor Beck Weathers, or that of Everest's first summiteer, Tenzing Norgay, whose son figures in this expedition and in a triumphant photo at the summit. The pictures are absolutely awesome and exhilarating, fully imparting the lure and deadliness of an Everest experience. --Gilbert Taylor

Bringing an understated yet powerful Buddhist/Sherpa ethical perspective to the tragedy on Everest chronicled in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, Coburn reports on the IMAX film crew who participated in the rescue effort when the May 1996 expeditions led by guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer ended in death and crippling injury. Charged with the daunting task of capturing Everest on panoramic IMAX film and packing video equipment along with the cumbersome, specially made IMAX camera, expedition leader David Breashears made the moral choice to join the rescue rather than film the tragedy for the nightly news. Nonetheless, Breashears's team, which included the American-educated Sherpa Jamling Tenzing Norgay, whose father reached the summit of Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953, went on to make cinematic history. The dramatically beautiful photographs hint at the grandeur of the IMAX film and prove to readers that good things come to those who wait and help. The harrowing story-within-a-story is told by Seaborn "Beck" Weathers, a badly frostbitten member of Krakauer's group who was carried down the mountain by IMAX team members. According to Coburn, the Buddhist Sherpas believe that in order to succeed consistently in ascending Everest and surrounding peaks, "one's motivation must be pure," for they believe that these mountains "exist as much in the realm of the spiritual as they do the physical." In this exciting and richly informative tale, Coburn conveys how a pure-hearted group temporarily won favor with an unconquerable mother goddess. 100 full-color photos. 100,000 first printing; first serial to National Geographic; author tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Featuring spectacular color photos, many shots using a large-format IMAX camera modified for light weight and the harsh conditions encountered on the world's highest mountain, this work stems from a project to bring Everest to IMAX theaters in 1998. While preparing for the final assault on Everest's peak, members of the international expedition participated in the rescue of the climbers trapped by the fatal blizzard of May 1996, which killed eight. The story of survivor Beck Weather adds poignancy to the project, but it is the photos and broader scope that set this work apart from other recent works focusing on the tragedy (e.g., Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, LJ 4/1/97). Coburn, who worked in Nepal with the Peace Corps for 15 years and has written widely on the area, offers thorough descriptions of the entire Everest experience, including the geology of the region and Nepalese culture and religion. Also featured are an introduction by popular adventure-writer Tim Cahill and an afterword by David Brashears, the first American to scale Everest twice and a member of nine previous Himalayan filmmaking expeditions. Highly recommended for most public, natural history, and mountaineering collections. [BOMC selection.]‘Tim J. Markus, Evergreen State Coll. Lib., Olympia, Wash. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.