The narrative device is the author telling her story and thoughts to a hitchhiker. This is supposedly the staging area for each chapter. It is not a successful mechanism and seems needlessly contrived. The book takes a few scenes from Kanchenjunga where Ms. Howkins found romance with a Spanish climber, a brief narrative of her first K2 climb with her ex-husband, who appears to be a certified mad man, and the remainder is devoted to her second K2 climb, Project K2000.

The book badly needs organization; the reader is frequently confused about what expedition she is talking about, and continuity is completely absent. While reading, I had the impression she was lifting passages from her private journals and entering them in a scattershot fashion. I later found out that almost the entire section on Project K2000 had first appeared in Mountain Zone. The author barely characterizes her teammates on Project K2000; she doesn't even give their last names. It is as if Ms. Howkins was confronting faceless enemies. I have read many times about how difficult it is for women climbers to be accepted in the male fraternity of mountaineers, but the treatment Ms. Howkins endured was appalling: ignoring her, referring to her by obscene names, trashing her tent. I couldn't believe well-educated, civilized men would behave in such a fashion toward the one lone woman on their team. She states that if she had been a wife or companion of one of the members, there probably would have been less friction.

I found Ms. Howkins likeable, smart and perceptive with a flair for the lyrical. However, the book lacks a focus and seems hastily put together. C-

She tells that story and more in K2: A Quest For The Summit. Eventually she frees herself from Zee, she rises above the obstacles placed in her way from other climbers in this male-dominated world. She's a good writer and tells the story well.

It's not a story of one climb but of several, it's a series of memoirs, really. Why does Howkins use the hitchiker 'Hiddle' as a foil - someone to tell her stories to? Other reviewers of this book have dismissed him as a fictional character, (and a bad device at that) - yet nowhere in the book does Howkins say that he is...so why do they assume so? Because it's impossible to believe a man could sit in a car with a woman and listen to HER talk? Pay attention to HER talk? If Hiddle the hitch-hiker is a fiction, why did Howkins think it necessary to use this foil? Well, their conversations do illuminate her stories the more...for example in the beginning with his talk of 'Ananku' or trouble. She is capable of learning from her adventures, long after they have passed.

''Go ahead, I'm listening.'' she has Hiddle say. One wonders if in the real world she ever had a man who said that to her, and meant it.

If you like to read climbing expedition books, I recommend that you read "Alone at the Summit."

The whole lure of mountain climbing is the risk involved. If nothing could ever go wrong when climbing a mountain, then what's the point of doing it? It's the thrill of danger and the challenge of staying a live that makes it so attractive. Stephen Venables met this challenge head on. He had to fight through injuries, exhaustion and the elements to get down the mountain alive and so did his friends. That's nothing to put down, that is what happens when mountaineering. And this was down the East face, the hardest part of Everest to climb.

I thought this was a great book. The author really shows what pushing yourself to the limits in life threatening conditions feels like. This book will go on the shelf with my other top adventure books.

I must add that the author was not rescued at the top of the mountain as people seem to be saying. He was rescued at the base of the mountain in the valley, after climbing down the mountain himself. There's a big big difference there.

Also, in retrospect I can think of another group other than SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) members that will love this book. That group is the legion of fanatic Cubs fans out there(and my, my, my there are a lot of us aren't there?).

I had fond memories of seasons past as I paged through this book. This book is a very effective time machine if you have lived, suffered, and rejoiced through Cub seasons past and present.

Just think of it as a 100+ year High School Yearbook. It's just too bad that the publishing date wasn't 1999 - it would have been interesting to see how Sammy Sosa's 1998 season did once the authors' sabermetric grid was applied to it!

Go Cubs!

/fwa

But like most treasure you must move aside mountains of dry sand to get to the gems.

Especially niggling is the lack of a good index or listing of the players alphabetically. For example, to locate Cap Anson, or Bruce Sutter, Ernie Banks, or Ron Santo you have page through the book a section at a time to find them. How the authors and the publisher overlooked this simple courtesy is baffling!

Members of the Society of American Baseball Research (of which the authors are both members) will want to add this amazing resource to their library for the wealth of stats and the clever use of sabermetrics. The rest of us will most likely pass on this dry book.

/fwa

Book is an excellent source for period photographs. However, if you know any of the actual history of this subject matter, read the captions with a skeptical eye. The captions written for the more contemporary photographs are a catastrophe! The photographs are exceptional though. Perhaps the caption writer wasn't the author! I certainly hope so!

By this book for the photography...just don't read the captions!

Well, if you are like Andrew Greig, notwithstanding lack of climbing experience, you find the invitation hard to resist, especially since the mountaineer who invites you, Mal Duff, is personally willing to put you through the paces on some of the local peaks to help you get into the groove of climbing. Before you know it, you find yourself on expedition in the Karakoram Himalayas headed to the Mustagh Tower.

This book is the author's account of how he found himself on a high altitude climbing expedition, what he did to train and get in shape for it, what he did when he got there, and what his perceptions were, as a former arm chair climber, of the expedition experience and climbing at high altitude.

His account is gritty, realistic, and he tells it the way he sees it, warts and all. Well written, though narrow in scope, it celebrates the roller coaster existence of being on a real live adventure ride that is the lot of expeditioners everywhere.

Kocour portrays herself as an accomplished mountianeer, but imho her writing is far from accomplished.

I wished the book had included a good map so I could follow the progress of the group up the mounain. I also needed a Dramatis Personae. (I finally wrote-up my own.)

I was annoyed as Ms. Kocour's words revealed her over-idealization of the guides and her general contempt for the other climbers (except for her tent-mate). (It would be nice to read a book about the climb written by one of the others; I wonder how they saw her.)

Her writing imho is juvenile and, especially disconcerting, are the numerous (unintended, I assume) puns.

Still, I'm glad her friends et al encouraged her to write the book and overall I'm glad I read it. I know more about climbing than I did and more about Denali aka Mt. McKinley.

Before her next book, and I hope she writes again about her climbs, I hope she will enroll in a good basic writing class; one in which she will Face an Extreme(ly) rigorous teacher!

Kocur's descriptive writing is so good, I had to put on 2 wool sweaters, turn up the thermostat to 75 degrees F, and curl up in a blanket to get through her book. Krakauer writes well of the horror of failed mountain climbing, but Kocur seems to catch the essence of what it is like to be stranded in a fatal storm high up a mountain better.

The one truely off-putting part of this book is the dreadful proofreading. Typoes and "spellcheckos" are all too common, distracting from Kocur's prose. I can only hope that, some day, editors will go back to editing.

For me, as a woman, the most delightful part of the tale was how Kocur was treated as a woman. Once she got on the mountain, her gender seemed to be a non-issue, with one small exception. She did not make a big deal of this, and I found it refreshing to read a book about women and men where gender games didn't happen.

I give this book to my library patrons who liked Krakauer's _Into Thin Air_, those who read about women and those who enjoy well-told tales.