Customer Reviews

Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While this book is a nice coffee table photo album, the content and text leave me wanting for more words, insights, and revelations, with fewer photos. The photos are nice, the overall book a little lacking in true substance. Nothing new seems to have been presented to the reader besides the photos, and the discussions about the discovery of Mallory's remains in 1999 reflect the fact that Breashears and Salkeld, while well known in their fields, played no role in the 1999 expedition and have no special insights from it to share with the reader. Not bad if you want the background on the earlier 1920's climbs, but Salkeld's other book, The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine (recently released in a new edition in the UK) does a much better job of filling the reader in on the topic than her treatment of the subject in this picture book.

I had some limited knowledge of the Mallory expeditions prior to reading this but not much. This book was a great read for me as a novice climber/historian due to my limited knowledge. Although someone who is very familiar with the subject matter may not appreciate the book, I found it to be an excellent source of information and extremely interesting to read. The photos are incredible and let you get a feel for what the author is talking about. If you are looking for the actual photos of Mallory's body clinging to the slope however, they are not here. Just what I found to be an honest, up front, and informative read regarding the whole Mallory and Irvine riddle.

For those of you who read "Into Thin Air" and were somewhat fascinated by the story of George Mallory's attempts to climb Everest in the 1920's and the later rumor of the discovery of his body by a Chinese climber in 1975, then this book will only heighten your interest.

I had thought about buying this book, but I came across it at the public library and checked it out. I'm kinda glad I didn't buy it, because the text isn't that well written--people are referred to by their last name and then formally introduced several pages later, some details are left out, other details are repeated, etc.--but the photographs from the 1920's expeditions and of the items recovered from Mallory's body are absolutely captivating. It just fascinates me to no end to think about these guys making the first attempts to climb Everest, experimenting with oxygen tanks, and reaching a height on Everest not surpassed until the 1950's.

I think the main problem with the book is this: the authors had made two expeditions to find Mallory's body in 1986 and 1995. They were unsuccessful. Another team was successful in 1999; this was documented in a PBS/NOVA documentary and they have their own book, which deals more with the discovery of the body. It seems like the authors of this book pulled out the material they had been working on and wrapped it up somewhat hurriedly to capitalize on the publicity (as another reviewer has also noted). So they don't talk much about their own attempts to find Mallory, and they don't talk enough about the successful team's discovery of his body (because they weren't there).

I have only recently taken up reading books on Everest. Of three so far, this was the least pleasing. "The Last Climb" does an excellent job of describing the history and background of the early expeditions to Everest. However, it does not do the title justice in that when they describe Mallory and Irvine's "last climb", one is left unmoved and far from gripped. There speculations of the fateful day also appear very narrow. The book is lavishly illustrated but to me was more of a history text than a good read.

It states in the prologue that this book was started prior to the discovery of Mallory's body on Mt. Everest. With that said, after reading it; I'm of the impression that it was completed quickly and rushed into print after finding the body so it could sell the maximum number of copies.

I've now read what I think are all the post discovery expedition books. This is an excellent book. There are wonderful pictures of the early British expeditions which are not found in other books and the writing was concise and tried to cover all areas. After reading it, the historical aspects seems to be a greatly pared down version from Audrey Salkeld's previous book with Tom Holzel "The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine".

Overall this is a wonderful coffee table book. It covers Mallory's history with Everest; has plenty of 1920's photographs; a section on how he went into legend like he did: pictures of what was removed from the body and a section which reviews the clues based on where the body was found and what he had on his person. If you have a casual interest in the topic, this is a great book to choose. If you are looking for something a bit more involved, try the aforementioned "The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine" by Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld. Looking for a book on the history of the expedition to find clues on the disappearance? The exclusive team story is in "Ghosts of Everest". Conrad Anker's version is in "The Lost Explorer" (he's the one who actually found Mallory's body). My favorite of the expedition books however, was "Lost on Everest" by Peter Firstbrook. It covers historical background on Mallory and the early Everest expeditions in more of a conversational yet detailed manner, and this I found overall the most intriguing.

I bought this book thinking that it was written to accompany the wonderful television programme I saw about a 1999 expedition to Everest to discover what became of Mallory and Irvine. It is not.

The book is well presented book and nicely bound. The most attractive aspect of the book is the 1920's photographs; they are very evocative of a lost era when parts of the earth were distant and unexplored. However it is not particularly well written and the discussion of the mystery of Mallory and Irvine's fate is unclear and ineffective. It does not shed light on its subject, and I have had to look elsewhere for that. Poorly served by maps and diagrams it leaves the reader struggling to appreciate the terrain, routes and location of camps. It's weakest point is where the authors try to recreate the last climb by describing what was going through the head of Mallory; this is very unconvincing, not least because no attempt is made to take into account the character of men with English public school backgrounds (to my mind, a key factor). Thus the book fails at the point which is of most interest.

In conclusion, a nice book to browse through thanks to the photographs (hence the 3 stars) but otherwise unsatisfactory.

I have read pieces of information about the legendary early expeditions of Mt. Everest and therefor really wanted to read this book. From the start to finish I found this book to be well researched and written. I very much enjoyed the photographs. Now I am curious about the other books written about George Mallory. This book made the men of the expedition come alive.

the pictures were absolutely fabulous. they go into great detail to explain what REALLY happened, totally unbiased of the popular opinion. it was written by the king and queen of everest knowledge and does the legend of mallory such good service that GL Mallory's nephew even wrote the forward. forgetting to buy this book will be as costly as to forget your oxygen at camp six.

There are many books on the market dealing with the summit attempts of George Leigh Mallory. No one tome has yet encapsulated the adventures to stand out as the consummate work. It will be necessary to read several books to lay claim to being fully informed. The great strength of LAST CLIMB is in its wonderful collection of vintage photographs from the 1920's British Everest Expedition and its members. Its one thing to read of gentlemen climbers in tweed and quite another to see it, a picture being worth a thousand words and all that. The many dozens of photographs, some taken by Mallory himself, breath life into a much exhausted realm of discussion. Mallory was an aesthete and I believe he would not want his story to be told in the mere blandness of words but exhorted on the artistic level provided by the beautiful photography collected here. Hats off to MR. Breashears and Ms. Salkeld for presenting these heroes in all their glory.