What books are on your summer reading list?...

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Comments

[LeeQuod]

It's funny how different people react differently; recently I read a book by Sam Harris, and it actually *raised* my blood pressure... ;-)

[Jason Taylor]

I just finished "Spies in the Himalayas"

http://www.amazon.com/Spies-Himalayas-Missions-Perilous-Studies/dp/0700612238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244569351&sr=8-1

It was about a noted(and temporarily controversial) mission to place a nuclear powered sensor at the top of the mountains to watch Chinese nuclear testing in a joint op between the CIA and Indian intelligence. One of the devices was unfortunatly lost near the sources of the Ganges not unnaturally creating a big to-do when it was found out though apparently it has caused no harm.

One of the amusing parts was the Sherpas crowding around the device and competing for the priveledge of carrying it(because it was warm)and the senior climbers shrinking from it(perhaps superstitiously, perhaps not-they knew less about such things in the sixties and in any case most mountaineers were not physicists). Fortunatly no harm was done, at least by the device thought the natural dangers of climbing were different. Ironically effective recon satillites were developed right after the mission making much of it superfluous. No one can afford to rely on such chances however.

It is unfortunate that I got it from the library as I couldn't pace myself the way I would have liked-some books you can't read with a due date hanging over you. It was an interesting story theme in any case.

[Jason Taylor]

After Everest : an autobiography / by Tenzing Norgay, Sherpa, as told to Malcolm Barnes.

is waiting at the library for me. This is a series of interviews of Sir Edmund Hillary's climbing partner Tenzing who was one of the first two at the top.