A book recommendation for mountaineering literature junkies:
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
by Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis
With 600 pages of dense text, only hard core fans of the genre are likely to enjoy it, i.e. people who have already read a book or two about Mallory and Irvine, not people who read "Into Thin Air" and felt that was enough about Everest.
This book describes the context of the early Everest expeditions in detail; I learned new things about a wide variety of subjects. The narrative starts with the horror of World War I, including some very disturbing glimpses into the way the British managed the conflict and the associated propaganda. Davis believes that the war was a huge factor in these early expeditions - that it shaped a generation's attitude toward death and risk in the mountains.
He explains the geopolitical background of British-ruled India and its relationship with Tibet over the years, and talks about the way the Great Trigonometric Survey of India was carried out - the project that identified Everest as the highest mountain in the world. I'd always thought that the British had attempted Everest from its Tibetan side because Nepal was closed so they couldn't climb the so-called "tourist" route. But front-pointed crampons hadn't been invented yet so they couldn't have made it through the Khumbu Icefall anyway.
Davis explains the different attitudes toward homosexual encounters at a time when women were less forthcoming before marriage, and describes how this affected the close relationships among the British mountaineers of that time.
He had already started writing his book before Mallory's body was found a decade ago, and he discussed that as well. Although I had read extensively about the discovery, it had a greater impact after I had "gotten to know" George Mallory through quotes from letters to his wife.
Fascinating book - but only if you're into that sort of thing.