By the author of the New York Times bestselling Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, this chronicle of the iconic first American expedition to Mt. Everest in May 1963 – published to coincide with the climb's 50th anniversary – combines riveting adventure, a perceptive analysis of its dark and terrifying historical context, and revelations about a secret mission that followed. In the midst of the Cold War, against the backdrop of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the space race with the Soviet Union, and the quagmire of the Vietnam War, a band of iconoclastic, independent-minded American mountaineers set off for Mt. Everest, aiming to restore America's confidence and optimism. Their objective is to reach the summit while conducting scientific research, but which route will they take? Might the Chinese, in a public relations coup, have reached the top ahead of them? And what about another American team, led by the grandson of a President, that nearly bagged the peak in a bootleg attempt a year earlier? The Vast Unknown is, on one level, a harrowing, character-driven account of the climb itself and its legendary team of alternately inspiring, troubled, and tragic climbers who suffered injuries, a near mutiny, and death on the mountain. It is also an examination of the profound sway the expedition had over the American consciousness and sense of identity during a time when the country was floundering. And it is an investigation of the expedition's little-known outcome: the selection of a team to plant a CIA surveillance device on the Himalayan peak of Nanda Devi, to spy into China where Defense Intelligence learned that nuclear missile testing was underway.

The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest

History

Coburn, Broughton

Military

Crown

Crown Publishers, Inc.

In the early 1970s, Broughton Coburn lived and taught school in a subsistence-farming village on the edge of Nepal's Himalaya Mountains. It was there that he met and developed a unique friendship with a septuagenarian native widow named Vishnu Maya Gurung, fondly known to her relatives and locals as Aama, "mother." When Coburn moved into the hayloft above her water-buffalo shed, Aama became his landlady, but she also treated him like the son she never had. Having lost his own mother shortly before he met Aama, Coburn forged an immediate bond with the sprightly Nepali woman. Fifteen years after he first met Aama, Coburn returned to her remote village with his future wife Didi and an invitation for Aama to join them on a trip to America. At eighty-four, Aama believed she had become a burden to her grandchildren and therefore welcomed the chance to visit her adopted son's country. For Coburn, this was a way to introduce Aama to relatives and friends back home; but for Aama the trip represented something more - a pilgrimage that had been prescribed for her by village priests, an opportunity to gain merit by undertaking a strenuous journey during the final stage of her life. Aama in America is a vivid chronicle of what became a twenty-five-state, coast-to-coast adventure. Guided by the perpetual curiosity and deeply spiritual orientation of their intuitive, unpredictable travel companion, Coburn and Didi gradually began to view their country from an entirely new perspective. The more they experienced Aama's unclouded vision of America, the more they realized they were not simply traveling across the United States - they were undertaking an emotional and philosophical odyssey toward a greater understanding of their culture, their country, and themselves.

AAMA in America

Travel

Asia

DOUBLEDAY

Vishnu Maya, called Aama (Mother) by everyone in her tiny Nepalese village, was living high in the Himalayas when she befriended American Peace Corps worker Broughton Coburn in 1974. In 1988, Aama came to visit him—on a trip prescribed by village priests as a way for the eighty-four-year-old, four-foot-eight woman to earn merit by making a difficult journey late in life. Aama in Americais a vivid chronicle of what became a twenty-five-state, coast-to-coast adventure. Guided by the perpetual curiosity and deeply spiritual orientation of their ingenious, unpredictable travel companion, Coburn and his fiancée gradually began to view their country from an entirely new perspective. "Beneath the uniform, commercial, man-made epidermis of our country," Coburn writes, "Aama found a culture and landscape that was alive and sacred, and she steered us toward it." Aama in America is on one level an offbeat American travelogue. But on another it is a profound exploration of beliefs, values, and lost spirituality, a rediscovery of the spiritual that lies beneath the surface of America, and a singular account of the meeting of two widely divergent cultures.

Aama in America: A Pilgrimage of the Heart

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Anchor

An enchanting portrait of an inimitable Himalayan woman in her seventies whose life and wisdom illustrate the strength and resilience of the human spirit. In 1973 Broughton Coburn lived and taught school in a subsistence farming village on the edge of Nepal's Himalayan mountains. It was there that he met and developed a unique friendship with a septuagenarian native widow named Vishnu Maya Gurung, fondly known to her relatives and locals as Aama (mother). When Coburn moved into the hay loft above her water buffalo shed, Aama became his landlady, but she also treated him like the son she never had. Having lost his own mother shortly before he met Aama, Coburn took an instant liking to the sprightly Nepalese woman. Already a success in two previous small press editions, Nepali Aama is Coburn's enchanting account of his experiences living, working, and traveling with Aama, illustrated with his own photos and Aama's candid, sometimes salty, often hilarious observations on everyday life in the rural third world. By combining Aama's deep-rooted wisdom with his striking black-and-white photographs, Coburn places the reader in a setting that few have ever experienced. He also offers rare insight into a culture alive with humor, folklore, and religion. "Aama and her people were poor and uneducated, but they seemed to possess an uncanny strength grounded in tradition, family, community, and self-sufficiency," he writes. "The values and philosophy that I have learned from Aama, her relatives, and the villagers are life lessons that are valuable in my own country, or wherever I go."

Nepali Aama: Life Lessons of a Himalayan Woman

Americas

Manaslu Books

Touching My Father's Soul: In the Footsteps of Tenzing Norgay

Sports & Outdoors

Norgay, Jamling Tenzing

Biographies

Ebury Press

Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's Journey to the Top of Everest

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Thorndike Pr

The New York Times bestselling true story of how an intrepid film crew became a heroic rescue team during the disastrous 1996 climbing season. It was a death-defying assignment: Gather a rugged crew of climbers and photographers to hoist equipment—including an IMAX camera—to the top of the world and record the summiting of Mount Everest as never before. But then a freak storm swept the mountain, claiming eight lives, including two world-class guides, and the venture turned into a life-or-death rescue mission. The group did what they could to save lives—and came back with a story like no other. The terror and triumph of May 1996 will go down in infamy. Made famous by Jon Krakauer’s bestseller Into Thin Air and recounted in David Breashears's IMAX film, the narrative is relayed here in a gripping volume from National Geographic. Written in suspenseful detail, the book documents how a courageous photographic team, facing hazards of their own, became an essential part of an effort that brought some—but not all—of their companions down from the mountain alive.

Everest

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

National Geographic

More than 125 full-color photographs, including spectacular IMAX images, and firsthand accounts by survivors chronicle the fateful 1996 expedition to climb Everest, a trek that ended up claiming eight lives. 100,000 first printing. BOMC. First serial, National Geographic. Tour.

Everest : Mountain Without Mercy

Nature & Ecology

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