Mountains of the Mind: a History of a Fascination

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When I tried to haul myself up on a block of it, it would pull out towards me, like a drawer opening. Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Over and over I read that passage, and I wanted nothing more than to be one of those two tiny dots, fighting for survival in the thin air. Most of us regard risking our lives in this way as foolish, but such profound experiences are compelling, even addictive.

Era como tener el mejor quiosco de chucherías del mundo a mi libre disposición: nunca llegué a creerme del todo que pudiera llevarme las piedras.

Macfarlane tells this tale using a variety of techniques, melding cultural history, geological history, and his own experiences as a climber. I could see dozens of tiny meltwater lakes which had formed in the hollows between the billows, winking at me like shields in the sun.

Hace tres siglos, arriesgar la vida por subir a una montaña habría sido tanto como declararse lunático. Its floor was paved with grey flagstones, always cold underfoot, and two of its walls were giant windows. There was also something about the setting of these stories, the stages on which they took place, which stirred me profoundly. It smelt strongly of camphor, and there was a clutter of shoes on the floor of the wardrobe which made it difficult to stand up in. His work has been translated into many languages, won prizes around the world, and his books have been widely adapted for film, television, stage and radio.I could see the gravel plains of Tibet scrolling away to distant white peaks; Everest itself like a dark pyramid; the oxygen bottles the climbers wore on their backs and which made them look like scuba-divers; the massive ice-walls on the North Col which they scaled using ropes and ladders, like medieval warriors besieging a city; and, finally, the black T of sleeping-bags which was laid out on the snow at Camp VI to tell the climbers at the lower camps, who were staring up at the mountain's higher slopes through telescopes, that Mallory and Irvine had disappeared. A convincing book of historical evidence alongside his own oxygen-deprived experiences in an attempt to answer the age old question, ‘Why climb the mountain? What about my fingers, though, I thought: they'll be crushed flat if it hits them, and I'll never get down.