The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War and Everest
Autor Ed Caesaren Limba Engleză Paperback – 2 iun 2021
'A small classic of the biographer's art'Sunday Times
The untold story of Britain's most mysterious mountaineering legend - Maurice Wilson - and his heroic attempt to climb Everest. Alone.
In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceived his own crazy, beautiful plan: he would fly a Gipsy Moth aeroplane from England to Everest, crash land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit - all utterly alone. Wilson didn't know how to climb. He barely knew how to fly. But he had pluck, daring and a vision - he wanted to be the first man to stand on top of the world.
Maurice Wilson is a man written out of the history books - dismissed as an eccentric and a charlatan by many, but held in the highest regard by world class mountaineers such as Reinhold Messner.The Moth and the Mountainrestores him to his rightful place in the annals of Everest and in doing so attempts to answer that perennial question - why do we climb mountains?
'A towering, tragic tale rescued from oblivion by Ed Caesar's magnificent writing' Dan Snow
'This bonkers ripping yarn of derring-don't is a hell of a ride'The Times
'It's hard to imagine a finer tribute to one of Everest's forgotten heroes' Elizabeth Day
Preț: 57.78 lei
Preț vechi: 69.38 lei
-17% Nou
Puncte Express: 87
Preț estimativ în valută:
11.06€ • 11.54$ • 9.27£
11.06€ • 11.54$ • 9.27£
Carte disponibilă
Livrare economică 21 februarie-04 martie
Livrare express 05-11 februarie pentru 29.82 lei
Preluare comenzi: 021 569.72.76
Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780241977255
ISBN-10: 0241977258
Pagini: 288
Dimensiuni: 129 x 198 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.2 kg
Editura: Penguin Books
Colecția Penguin
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
ISBN-10: 0241977258
Pagini: 288
Dimensiuni: 129 x 198 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.2 kg
Editura: Penguin Books
Colecția Penguin
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
Notă biografică
Ed
Caesaris
forty
years
old.
He
lives
in
Manchester,
and
writes
for
theNew
Yorker.
He
has
won
eleven
major
journalism
awards
-
including
a
British
Press
Award,
PPA
Writer
of
the
Year
and
the
2014
Foreign
Press
Award
for
Journalist
of
the
Year.
His
subjects
have
included
conflict
in
central
Africa,
the
world's
longest
tennis
match,
stolen
art,
money-laundering,
and
the
trade
in
diamonds.
His
first
book,Two
Hours,won
a
Cross
Sports
Book
Award
in
2016.
Recenzii
'Ed
Caesar
has
written
a
slim,
ravishing
chronicle
that
isabsolutely
bursting
with
life
-
doomed
romance,
the
dread
of
the
battlefield,
the
lure
of
adventure,
hair-raising
tales
of
amateur
aviation,
and,
above
all,
the
beauty
and
madness
of
the
quest
to
ascend
Earth's
tallest
summit.
Maurice
Wilson
is
as
rich
and
full
of
surprise
and
contradiction
as
a
character
in
a
novel,
and
through
painstaking
historical
research,
Caesar
brings
his
hero
back
to
vivid
life
in
all
his
messy,
inspiring,
ultimately
tragic
glory.A
major
feat
of
reporting
and
elegant
storytelling'
'The Moth and the Mountainis gripping and exquisite.A mad, magnificent, and moving tale'
'Maurice Wilson was an amazing human being.Passionate, heroic, hilariously deluded, inspired, brave to the point of lunacy, determined, war damaged, lovelorn and gloriously unhinged.The Moth and the Mountainis a wonderful, elegiac account of an extraordinary life written with a wry, compassionate humour. It is clear that Ed Caesar loves his hero. I think I do too'
'The adventurer Maurice Wilson was a forgotten figure until Ed Caesar's brilliantly written book restored him to his rightful place in the annals of exploration... Caesar's book received enormous praise on publication last year and rightly so.This splendid tale is every bit as exciting as any adventure novel and deeply moving'
'This bonkers ripping yarn of derring-don't isa hell of a ride ...scrupulously researched ... Maurice Wilson was a one-off, quite outside the ordinary run of people, andThe Moth and the Mountainisa "sorry, beautiful, melancholy, crazy" tribute to a man who, like a leaf in autumn, burnt brightest just before he fell'
'An urgent and humane story that invites not mockery of a madman, but pity and admiration.A small classic of the biographer's art'
'Caesar is a journalist with a novelist's eye for character ...Wilson's story is bonkers, but also beautiful. The profile Caesar builds iscompelling, colourful and warm- of a complex, contradictory man with admirable self-belief and a healthy disregard for class boundaries and national borders'(Book of the Week)
'A riveting tale of trauma, spiritual awakening and postwar derring-do... a gem of a book ... meticulously researched'(Book of the Week)
'An outstanding book . . .The Moth and the Mountainreturns readers to a romantic era when Everest was terra nova rather than an experience to be bought . . . the author, a contributing writer for theNew Yorker, is a talented storyteller with a flair for detail. . .Wilson's story is an entry less in the annals of mountaineering than in the Book of Life. That such an extraordinary person even existed is cause for celebration'
'A wonderful adventure story, beautifully told.Based on years of painstaking archival research, Ed Caesar'sThe Moth and the Mountainbrings us a modern-day myth with a beguiling, impossible hero from a vanished era of empire, one man on an epic quest that isby turns gripping and heartbreaking'
'The Moth and the Mountainis a gripping story of heroism, adventure, madness and thwarted love, told with extraordinary empathy and intelligence.Ed Caesar is a writer of rare style and depth, and he has written a great and moving work of non-fiction'
'In the 1930s, an Englishman, Maurice Wilson - a traumatized veteran of the Great War - decided he would fly to Mount Everest, crash-land on the slopes and climb to the summit alone. (Never mind that he was a novice pilot and had never climbed a mountain.) It's not a spoiler to say that things didn't go well, butCaesar puts the man, and his quest, in historical context'
'An engrossing biography ...credit to Caesar for rescuing such a splendid tale of an engaging maverick from the footnotes of Everest history.
'Praise is due to Ed Caesar for managing to tell this tale so well, becausethe sheer madness of Wilson's life would surely have thrown off all but the most sure-footed biographer.Caesar sets about it with fantastic energy and makes use of a marvellous collage of letters, diary entries, poetry, telegrams, interviews and archival iced gems.He is to be applauded for giving romantic, adamantine, lion-hearted Maurice Wilson his overdue day in the sun'
'Why climb the world's highest mountain?For King and Country; for the glory of God; because it is there. Or, as for Maurice Wilson, because of an unhappy love affair, a wartime trauma, and a longing to get away from a life whose values are measured at the cash register.In Ed Caesar's telling, the hapless, defiant Wilson becomes an unexpected hero - an unforgettable inspiration for anyone who chafes at the limits of ordinary life'
'Gripping at every turn... it's impossible not to root for Wilson'
'Engagingly depicts Wilson and his times in ebullient and well-written prose ...a widely appealing and affecting character study, microhistory, story of love and loss, and inquiry into some surprising effects of trauma and personal tragedy'
'Riveting...Caesar's biographical tale of Wilson rightly restores a footnoted figure of alpine history to the storied peaks of Mount Everest, where his body lays still today'
'The Moth and the Mountainis gripping and exquisite.A mad, magnificent, and moving tale'
'Maurice Wilson was an amazing human being.Passionate, heroic, hilariously deluded, inspired, brave to the point of lunacy, determined, war damaged, lovelorn and gloriously unhinged.The Moth and the Mountainis a wonderful, elegiac account of an extraordinary life written with a wry, compassionate humour. It is clear that Ed Caesar loves his hero. I think I do too'
'The adventurer Maurice Wilson was a forgotten figure until Ed Caesar's brilliantly written book restored him to his rightful place in the annals of exploration... Caesar's book received enormous praise on publication last year and rightly so.This splendid tale is every bit as exciting as any adventure novel and deeply moving'
'This bonkers ripping yarn of derring-don't isa hell of a ride ...scrupulously researched ... Maurice Wilson was a one-off, quite outside the ordinary run of people, andThe Moth and the Mountainisa "sorry, beautiful, melancholy, crazy" tribute to a man who, like a leaf in autumn, burnt brightest just before he fell'
'An urgent and humane story that invites not mockery of a madman, but pity and admiration.A small classic of the biographer's art'
'Caesar is a journalist with a novelist's eye for character ...Wilson's story is bonkers, but also beautiful. The profile Caesar builds iscompelling, colourful and warm- of a complex, contradictory man with admirable self-belief and a healthy disregard for class boundaries and national borders'(Book of the Week)
'A riveting tale of trauma, spiritual awakening and postwar derring-do... a gem of a book ... meticulously researched'(Book of the Week)
'An outstanding book . . .The Moth and the Mountainreturns readers to a romantic era when Everest was terra nova rather than an experience to be bought . . . the author, a contributing writer for theNew Yorker, is a talented storyteller with a flair for detail. . .Wilson's story is an entry less in the annals of mountaineering than in the Book of Life. That such an extraordinary person even existed is cause for celebration'
'A wonderful adventure story, beautifully told.Based on years of painstaking archival research, Ed Caesar'sThe Moth and the Mountainbrings us a modern-day myth with a beguiling, impossible hero from a vanished era of empire, one man on an epic quest that isby turns gripping and heartbreaking'
'The Moth and the Mountainis a gripping story of heroism, adventure, madness and thwarted love, told with extraordinary empathy and intelligence.Ed Caesar is a writer of rare style and depth, and he has written a great and moving work of non-fiction'
'In the 1930s, an Englishman, Maurice Wilson - a traumatized veteran of the Great War - decided he would fly to Mount Everest, crash-land on the slopes and climb to the summit alone. (Never mind that he was a novice pilot and had never climbed a mountain.) It's not a spoiler to say that things didn't go well, butCaesar puts the man, and his quest, in historical context'
'An engrossing biography ...credit to Caesar for rescuing such a splendid tale of an engaging maverick from the footnotes of Everest history.
'Praise is due to Ed Caesar for managing to tell this tale so well, becausethe sheer madness of Wilson's life would surely have thrown off all but the most sure-footed biographer.Caesar sets about it with fantastic energy and makes use of a marvellous collage of letters, diary entries, poetry, telegrams, interviews and archival iced gems.He is to be applauded for giving romantic, adamantine, lion-hearted Maurice Wilson his overdue day in the sun'
'Why climb the world's highest mountain?For King and Country; for the glory of God; because it is there. Or, as for Maurice Wilson, because of an unhappy love affair, a wartime trauma, and a longing to get away from a life whose values are measured at the cash register.In Ed Caesar's telling, the hapless, defiant Wilson becomes an unexpected hero - an unforgettable inspiration for anyone who chafes at the limits of ordinary life'
'Gripping at every turn... it's impossible not to root for Wilson'
'Engagingly depicts Wilson and his times in ebullient and well-written prose ...a widely appealing and affecting character study, microhistory, story of love and loss, and inquiry into some surprising effects of trauma and personal tragedy'
'Riveting...Caesar's biographical tale of Wilson rightly restores a footnoted figure of alpine history to the storied peaks of Mount Everest, where his body lays still today'