SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2021 / BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK AWARDS SPECIAL JURY MENTION 2020
This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains.

Spanning millennia, from its earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya is a soaring account of resilience and conquest, discovery and plunder, oppression and enlightenment at the 'roof of the world'.

From all around the globe, the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation: pilgrims, adventurers and mountaineers seeking to test themselves among the world's most spectacular and challenging peaks. But far from being wild and barren, the Himalaya has throughout the ages been home to an astonishing diversity of indigenous and local cultures, as well as a crossroads for trade, and a meeting point and conflict zone for the world's superpowers. Here Jesuit missionaries exchanged technologies with Tibetan Lamas, Mongol Khans employed Nepali craftsmen, Armenian merchants exchanged musk and gold with Mughals. Here too the East India Company grappled for dominance with China's emperors, independent India has been locked in conflict with Mao's Communists and their successors, and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War is now being buried beneath mass tourism and ecological transformation.

Featuring scholars and tyrants, bandits and CIA agents, go-betweens and revolutionaries, Himalaya is a panoramic, character-driven history on the grandest but also the most human scale, by far the most comprehensive yet written, encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness.

‘How much risk is worth taking for so beautiful a prize?’

The Magician’s Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and best-known personalities in the world of climbing.

In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful lines – a line that remains unclimbed to this day.

Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli Steck’s disputed solo ascent of of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of Toni Egger on Cerro Torre in 1959 – when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair had made the first ascent, and the rise and fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz Humar. There are profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved German Kurt Albert, the father of the ‘redpoint’, and the enigmatic rock star Patrick Edlinger, a national hero in his native France who lost his way.

In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact mountaineering has on local communities and the role climbers play in the developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between art and alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb mountains.

In April 2015, catastrophic earthquakes left Nepal devastated. Over 7,000 people lost their lives and more than twice as many were injured. Hundreds of thousands were made homeless and UNESCO World Heritage sites were destroyed.

HOUSE OF SNOW is the biggest, most comprehensive and most beautiful collection of writing about Nepal in print. It includes over 50 excerpts of fiction and non-fiction inspired by the breathtaking landscapes and rich cultural heritage of this fascinating country.

Here are explorers and mountaineers, poets and political journalists, national treasures and international stars such as Michael Palin and Jon Krakauer, Laxmi Prasad Devkota and ManjushreeThapa – all hand-picked by well-known authors and scholars of Nepali literature including Samrat Upadhyay, Michael Hutt, Isabella Tree and Thomas Bell. All profits from sales will be donated to charities providing relief from the 2015 earthquakes.

Discover the powerful story of one woman's lifelong dedication to adventure and determination to succeed

'I shed a tear as I read this . . . I'll admit that I did not do so when I originally heard of her death. The difference? This book' Independent
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Alison Hargeaves was one of the finest climbers of her generation.

But in 1995, she died during a violent storm on K2.

On her death she was vilified by media outrage that a wife and mother would take such extreme risks.

This is the story of a woman with an astonishing determination to be the best that she could.

A woman driven to succeed just to secure a future for herself and her family.
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'A riveting and incredibly moving story' Irish News

'Few realized the extent of her inner turmoil - and her courage. A very moving biography of an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary talent and determination' Daily Telegraph

'A sensitive and intelligent book . . . Rose and Douglas recuse Hargreaves from the crude distortions of those who wanted to vilify or venerate her' Sunday Telegraph

If there is one mountain that is known across the whole world, it must be the highest - Everest. To the people who live at its feet she is Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the World. The disappearance of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine close to the summit in 1924 lent the mountain a tragic romanticism, of young men risking everything for a dream. When Norgay Tenzing and Ed Hillary became the first men to stand on the summit in 1953, it was the crowning glory for the coronation of Elizabeth II.

But nearly fifty years on, there are scores of ascents nearly every season. There are stories of bodies and heaps of garbage abandoned on the slopes, of the loss of cultural identity among the Sherpas and Tibetans who live at the foot of Everest. Ed Douglas spent parts of 1995 and 1996 travelling in Nepal and Tibet, talking to politicians and environmentalists, to mountaineers and local people. He found a poor region struggling to develop, and encountering environmental problems far greater than rubbish left by climbers. Local people are resourceful and cultured, reliant on the work the mountaineers and the mountain provide, but striving to find a balance between the new and the old.