On the morning of 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, the first news broke that Everest had finally been conquered. Drawing on first-hand interviews and unprecedented access to archives, this is a ground-breaking new account of that extraordinary first ascent.

Revealing that what has gone down in history as a supremely well-planned expedition was actually beset by crisis and controversy, Everest 1953 recounts a bygone age of self-sacrifice and heroism, using letters and personal diaries to reveal the immense stress and heartache the climbers often hid from their fellow team members.

Charting how the ascent affected the original team ­in subsequent years and detailing its immense cultural impact today, 'Everest 1953' is the perfect book to commemorate this remarkable feat of the human will.

Though it remains by far the world's most famous mountain, in recent years Everest's reputation has changed radically, with long queues of climbers on the Lhotse Face, lurid tales of frozen corpses and piles of high altitude trash. It wasn't always like this though. Once Everest was remote and inaccessible, a mysterious place, where only the bravest and most heroic dared to tread. The first attempt on Everest in 1922 by George Leigh Mallory and a British team is an extraordinary story full of controversy, drama and incident, populated by a set of larger than life characters straight out of Boys Own and Indiana Jones. The expedition ended in tragedy when, on their third bid for the top, Mallory's party was hit by an avalanche that left seven men dead. Using diaries, letters, published and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey creates a rich character driven narrative, exploring the motivations and private dramas of key individuals and detailing the back room politics and bitter rivalries that lay behind this epic adventure.

K2 is almost 800ft shorter than Everest, yet it's a far harder climb. Many great mountaineers became obsessed with reaching its summit, not all of them lived to tell of their adventures. Capturing the depth of their obsession, the heart-stopping tension of the climb and delving into the controversy that still surrounds the first ascent, Mick Conefrey delivers the definitive account of the 'Savage Mountain'. From drug-addicted occultist Aleister Crowley to the brilliant but tortured expedition leader Charlie Houston and, later, the Italian duo who finally made it to the top, Conefrey resurrects the tragic heroes, eccentric dreamers and uncompromising rivalries forever instilled in K2's legacy. This is the riveting, groundbreaking story of the world's deadliest mountain.

Though it remains by far the world's most famous mountain, in recent years Everest's reputation has changed radically, with long queues of climbers on the Lhotse Face, lurid tales of frozen corpses and piles of high altitude trash. It wasn't always like this though. Once Everest was remote and inaccessible, a mysterious place, where only the bravest and most heroic dared to tread. The first attempt on Everest in 1922 by George Leigh Mallory and a British team is an extraordinary story full of controversy, drama and incident, populated by a set of larger than life characters straight out of Boys Own and Indiana Jones. The expedition ended in tragedy when, on their third bid for the top, Mallory's party was hit by an avalanche that left seven men dead. Using diaries, letters, published and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey creates a rich character driven narrative, exploring the motivations and private dramas of key individuals and detailing the back room politics and bitter rivalries that lay behind this epic adventure.

What makes a good explorer? Adaptability, ambition, stamina, self-confidence, curiosity, optimism, authority--and fund-raising ability. Though few of us will ever have to face a charging elephant, or survive solely on penguin stew, when it comes to project management, crisis aversion, or any number of everyday problems, there is much we can learn from the larger-than-life tales of the world's most famous adventurers. Here, award-winning documentarian Mick Conefrey pulls practical advice from their original diaries and logs, like how to survive an anaconda attack (wait until it has swallowed your legs, then reach down and cut its head off), and how to keep morale up (according to Ernest Shackleton, "A good laugh doesn't require any additional weight"). In addition to the wonderful characters and stories, this book offers many lessons on how to set sail without a clear path home.

Answers to some important questions, courtesy of "The Adventurer's Handbook: "* How many corpses are believed to be on Mt. Everest?
Answer: 120 * How is polar bear meat best prepared?
Answer: Raw and frozen.
* What do you do if attacked by a charging lion?
Answer: Stand very still and stare it down. * What should you wear when crossing a desert?
Answer: Lots of layers--fabric absorbs sweat and prolongs
its cooling action.

Traversing a century of climbing that begins with Victorian enthusiasts and ends with the conquerors of the Himalayan peaks, "Mountain Men" tells the stories of the extraordinary men who were the first to climb the world's best-known mountains: the Matterhorn, McKinley, Everest, and K2. Edward Whymper's relentless siege of the Matterhorn ended in controversy when four of his companions plunged to their deaths an hour after leaving the summit. In Alaska there have been many disputed claims to the first conquest of Mt. McKinley, and locals still insist that the honor belongs to three miners who climbed on a bet, armed with homemade climbing irons and bags of donuts. For a hundred years mountaineers have fallen victim to the fatal attraction of K2. An Italian aristocrat, an American millionaire, and an English Satanist were among the first to reach its slopes. They found a place of disappointment and madness; one of them never returned.Accompanied by unique archival materials, detailed maps, and photographs, Mountain Men invites us to follow in the footsteps of these fearless explorers, and tells us their stories with all the romance and audacity, bravado and suffering, courage and miscalculation intact.