Forever on the Mountain

Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters by James M. Tabor

In 1967 a climbing team, led by Joe Wilcox attempted to climb Mount Denali/Mckinley. Most of the climbing team made it to the summit, but in all 7 people died during this attempt. This climbing group was conflicted from the beginning of their climb. At the time this was one of the biggest tragedies in the climbing community, and certainly in North America. The mountaiin was under the administration of the National Park Service and not many people attempted this climb at the time. the NPS has a very small staff at the Park at this time, almost none of whom had mountain climbing experience. The debate over who was to blame for this tragedy continued for years, with people who were on the mountain and who were not on the mountain pointing the finger. Of course this was never actually resolved. One of the major factors was a major storm that hit the mountain just as parties were summiting. The author does a good job of pesenting both sides, sometimes in too much detail. But also does well describing the geography and weather conditions that were present at the time. The major thing I cam away from this story is that if you were not there, and in some cases even if you were, you cannot really know what happened and why.

How to Rule the World

How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University by Theo Baker

A memoir about a first semester of attending Stanford and a look at the rarefied world of that institution. The author did not intend to be a journalist but volunteered at the campus paper and in the process uncovered a scandal that ending up having the president of the university resigning.

Trash!

Trash!: A Garbageman's Story by Simon Pare-Poupart, Pablo Strauss

This is a memoir of a trash man from Montreal. A short book but very entertaining, the daily grind of the trash man, and lots o implications about our throw away society. Not just throwing away stuff but also people. The author is a well educated person who has used his job as trash man to pay for his education, not the norm in the trash business.

The Hardest, Longest Race

The Hardest, Longest Race: Henry Ford and the Cross-Country Contest That Changed America by Eric Moskowitz

In 1908 there was a car race from NY to Seattle, 6 cars started the race and 3 finsihed it. Of course this was long before there was cross country freeways and even paved roads betweens cities. Most cars didn't make it because the road conditions were so bad that the cars just fell apart. Ford had two Model Ts in the race, both made it to Seattle. This was huge publicity stunt for Ford, when it was a relatively small company with lots of competitors. There was lots of alligations of cheating and the boook provides a good snap shot of the country at that time.

The First All-Star Game

The First All-Star Game: Babe Ruth, FDR and America at the Crossroads by Randall Sullivan

The first all star baseball game took place in July of 1933 in Chicago. At the time it was called the game of the century, but was so popular that it was repeated each year as the all star game. It also inspired the Negro leagues to have their own all star came in Chicago in september of 1933. The origial idea came from a sports writer for the Chicago Tribune. This was the depth of the depression, and when the depression began it was first thought that professional baseball was depression proof, but by 1933 atendance began to drop as more people were out of work and could not afford to go to games. The teams were chosen by ballots that were printed in newspapers and that people mailed in.

Dark Summit

Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season by Nick Heil

This is the chronicle of the 2006 season on Everest. Another year with a lot of fatalities. Also included is some history of Himalayan climbing, back to Mallory. This will be familiar ground to those who have read about other tragedies about climbing, which sometimes seems like the only kind.

The author does provide a nice summary list of the books published about the 1996 season “Before long a small library of firsthand accounts emerged, most notably Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Anatoli Boukreev’s The Climb, Beck Weathers’s Left for Dead, Kenneth Kamler’s Doctor on Everest, and Matt Dickinson’s The Other Side of Everest.”

The Will to Climb and K2

The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--the World's Deadliest Peak by Ed Viesturs, David Roberts, and K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs, David Roberts

These two books are the story of Eds climbing these two mountains, which was covered in his No Shortcuts to the Top book, but here he goes into more detail. These are also histories of climbing on these two mountains, which is rather involved since they are extremely difficult to climb mountains. The early history of attempts to climb are interesting because to get to the base of these mountains originally involved weeks of hiking and employing a lot of porters to carry gear. As opposed to presently people just flying into the base of the mountains.