No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs (2006, Hardcover)

I brought this book as it is one of the very few books available on mountaineering feats after 1980. Though I expected it to be more narrative of the climbs Ed Viesturs had done, the book turned out to be more of his life story, with lot of pages about his family and personal life. On certain key points,(some controversial ones included) Ed makes a lop sided effort to justify his actions, making the book quite dull reading in certain areas, if you are not a mountaineer or mad about it. I thought the book was more of quest to put marks to ultimate question Ed Viesturs will need to know - "In the greatness scale, where should one place Ed Viesturs, considering the fact that he is the only mountaineer to have never completed a bold new route on any of the 14 giants, (unlike the 5 others before him)who had done all of it without supplemental Oxygen?".

Overall the books makes o.k. reading for the high altitude climbing community but If you are a first time reader of mountaineering, go by Jon Krakauer (Into thin air or Eiger Dreams) it will be much interesting reading.