Book Reviews 1989 COMPILED by GEOFFREY TEMPLEMAN
Book Reviews 1989 COMPILED BY GEOFFREY TEMPLEMAN Chris Bonington - Mountaineer Chris Bonington Diadem Books, 1989, PP192, £17·95 Mountaineer is not really another book by Chris Bonington. It is Chris Bonington redesigned into a sumptuous Christmas package by his long-time editor at Hodder & Stoughton, Margaret Body, and Hodder's new pictorial collaborator, Ken Wilson of Diadem. For once, as Wilson shouts triumphantly in his introductory note, text is subordinated to pictures; and he has done Bonington proud, with a massive selection of colour photos, many of them not previously published, crisply printed in good deep colour saturation on a large format double-page layout. The whole Bonington career, spanning over 30 years, is on display, and the sheer variety and excitement of that career are summed up in the opening shots. For the dust-jacket we have a stunning view past a silhouetted figure on the Ogre, out over the Sim Gang glacier and Snow Lake, to the endless array of Hispar peaks beyond. On the back-cover a series of action portraits shows Bonington at different stages of his career. Inside the covers, the frontispiece is another glorious view from the Ogre. Then, as a backdrop for acknowledge ments, comes a double spread ofthe NE ridge of Everest with the bleak vastness of Tibet beyond. Turn over to the contents page and you find what might be a classic Alpine ridge but is in fact the more esoteric Mt Cook massif in New Zealand. Opposite Wilson's introduction there is a dynamic shot of Haston on a steel-cold winter's day on the Grandes Jorasses; then we are off on the first chapter, 'Foundation', introduced by the soft grey light of a summer's day on the N face of Scafell, with just enough contrast to bring out all the architectural detail.
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