Reviews/Praise
"Willis' classy style turns reportage into literature...Bonington's Boys come across as raw, anguished souls...As Willis describes in his artful prose, their suffering is not just a means to an end (the summit), it is an end." — The New York Times
"This book, with its high-altitude derring-do, is so breathtaking, you may need to read it with supplemental oxygen." — Michael Finkel, author of True Story
"Fascinating...Willis's meticulous, pitch-by-pitch accounts of climbs on the savage Eiger, the killer Annapurna, the intensely difficult Northeast Ridge of Everest and other major routes will make gripping reading ..." — The Washington Post
"A gripping adventure saga..." — Publishers Weekly
"A death-haunted saga of the scalers of heaven..." — Kirkus
"Mr. Willis tells a story that is gripping and poignant and even appalling…" — The Wall Street Journal
"Willis’ writing has a breathless you-are-there quality that puts the reader next to the climber on the mountain’s face as he tackles one challenging pitch after another…The Boys of Everest is both entertaining and enlightening." — American Alpine Journal
"As editor of a climbing journal I get many review books sent to me. I read very few of them cover to cover on the first day. This was one of them." — Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal
"A primer on the world of elite climbing...based on everything [Willis] knows about the men, and what he himself has learned from decades of being in their footsteps...one wonders how even now some of them can bear the burden of all they lost in their attempts to reach yet one more peak." — Book Slut
"The great accomplishment of Willis’ book is that he manages to write about the interiority of the climbers feelings and fears without collapsing into platitudes..." — Travel Happy
"The Boys of Everest is the compelling story of a momentous period of mountaineering history, vividly told and scrupulously researched." — Al Alvarez, author of Feeding the Rat
"The Boys of Everest is a captivating story and read. It's very, very good." — Ed Webster, author of Snow in the Kingdom: My Storm Years on Everest
"The Boys of Everest takes us deep inside the hearts and minds of men at once quixotic and genuinely noble. Willis has an extraordinary gift for conveying states of mind in extremis, particularly those moments for a climber when all the comfortable assumptions about himself fall away. The readers feels a powerful shock of recognition, whether or not he or she has ever been anywhere near a mountain." — John Manderino, author of Reasons for Leaving
"The Boys of Everest has an immediacy that leaves almost every other climbing book behind. As you read it, you will feel as if you're actually roped to Clint Willis' motley crew of British climbers, risking life and limb in one perilous ascent after another. A breathtaking achievement!" — Lawrence Millman, author of Last Places
"The Boys of Everest is as exquisite as it is exciting. It belongs on that rarified shelf where only the most accomplished and ambitious writers' work can survive." — Peter Kadzis, Editor, The Boston Phoenix
"Clint Willis' lively writing and his reporting elan lend The Boys of Everest a gripping, you-are-there quality. Your limbs ache, your toes freeze, you feel the burn of the icy wind. A wonderful read for both mountaineers and armchair adventurers." — Mike Sager, author of Scary Monsters and Super Freaks