To the Summit: Fifty Mountains that Lure, Inspire and Challenge

This book tells good stories about mountaineering.Better yet, it has great illustrations showing what mountain climbing is all about.

This book will make you want to strap on your backpack, grab your hiking poles and get out there! Gorgeous and challenging mountains and gorgeous book.

Great reading for the armchair traveler.

If you don't notice from the size and weight, this is a heavy, oversized coffee table book. Overall I think it is great. I saw negative comments in reviews about typos and the quality of the pictures, but golly I guess neither of those criticisms jumped out at me as I read the text and took in the pictures. My interest in the various mountains fluctuated a bit, I suppose, perhaps due to the stories accompanying them, but I have other books that talk about climbs on the well-known mountains (Everest, K2, Eiger, Annapurna, etc.) so I appreciate having a resource that discusses so many mountains that I haven't heard about. Heck, I haven't even read all of this yet and may not finish every chapter for months, but I already know this is a keeper in my mountaineering collection.Because of the ease of shipping books via Media Mail and how slowly the cost of media mail rises, you should be able to buy this heavy book for just $4 or so, the same price as a small paperback. The disadvantage of Media Mail is that it can be soooo sloooow sometimes and even when the shipper has a tracking number, tracking is sporadic. If you are in a hurry or like to know where the book is in the shipping process, upgrade the shipping. But I haven't had a book not show up yet.

While few people will ever climb a mountain in their lifetime most people are interested in human adventure and daring. This very large and beautifully produced book is a worldwide tour and overview of the history of man against mountain; and a very compelling one at that. I have absolutely no background in this area but the book doesn't get real technical about climbing instead focusing on the human drama that often accompanies expeditions, successful or not. In addition you get a good understanding when you're done of the mountainous geography of our world. Highly recommended.

I don't like this book at all. It has been hastily put together. The quality of the pictures is often mediocre. And the words accompanying the picture are a mere rehash of well-known facts. Other reviewers have already commented on typographic errors. Despite its size, this is not an inspiring book.