1998

Everest: The West Ridge

Thomas Hornbein

Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld were on the 1963 American expedition, the one that put the first Americans on top by the regular route. The two of them wanted the West Ridge instead, which nobody had climbed and nobody knew if…

Annals of the Former World

John McPhee

McPhee spent twenty years riding shotgun with geologists up and down Interstate 80, pulling over at roadcuts, and this is all four books plus a fifth chunk stacked into one. It won the Pulitzer in 1999. He starts in Jersey…