3 Review(s)

One of the best books ever published on the world’s greatest mountains, now in a revised and expanded edition and a new look. 'Eclectic pickings you may otherwise encounter in a lifetime of reading…[This anthology is] a delicious hoard.'—India Today. With over fifty essays, this comprehensive volume brings together a dazzling range of voices in an unparalleled panorama. Here you will find stories of great and thrilling ascents and descents; strange epiphanies and hallucinations; the madness of war on the 'world’s highest battlefield'; tales of exploratory derring-do; and a mutiny up on a mountain. A seeker has an intense spiritual experience on Mount Kailas, another among shamans on a mountaintop in Nepal; and, looking for the snow leopard in Ladakh, an author finds himself. A resident of a Sherpa village writes a heartfelt account of the aftermath of an avalanche which killed porters and climbers on Everest; and residents of Langtang record an oral history of the earthquake which wiped out their village. A matriarch describes her life and family in Almora of a bygone time; a prisoner in Dehra Dun jail draws solace from visits by birds and small animals; and the fragrance of lime makes a traveller’s night in a remote Garhwal village memorable for all time.Edited by acclaimed writers Ruskin Bond and Namita Gokhale—who have a deep and lifelong connection with the Himalaya—this classic anthology—in a revised and expanded edition—spans the entire range, from the foothills to the highest peaks, and from its easternmost to its westernmost ends. It will keep you riveted.||About the Author: Ruskin Bond is the author of numerous novellas, short-story collections and non-fiction books, many of them classics and several of them set in the villages and towns of the Himalayan region. Among his books are The Room on the Roof, Time Stops at Shamli, Night Train at Deoli, Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, Rain in the Mountains, A Time for All Things: Collected Essays and Sketches, Lone Fox Dancing: My Autobiography, A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. He lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his extended family. Namita Gokhale is the author of several acclaimed and bestselling works of fiction and non-fiction. Her books include Paro: Dreams of Passion, A Himalayan Love Story, The Book of Shadows, Shakuntala and Things to leave Behind. She is also co-director of the Jaipur Literary Festival and of Mountain Echoes, the Bhutan literary festival.