The Third Pole (CBR15 #29)

Many moons ago I read Into Thin Air and it sparked a Mt. Everest fascination in me. I can’t say that before 2015 I thought overmuch about the highest peak in the world, and I’m someone who enjoys a good walk but has zero intention of ever tackling anything like mountain climbing. But… I have been devouring content about the mountain and other thirteen 8,000-meter peaks ever since. So, when I spotted reviews of Mark Synnott’s The Third Pole I added it to my list and zoomed it to the top to get it to cover the Asia square in this year’s bingo (although that didn’t work out).  

I enjoyed my time with The Third Pole greatly. Whenever someone asked me what I was reading I was happy to answer, explaining how the author, Mark Synnott who had no intention of ever climbing Everest, gets told the story of the missing camera that Sandy Irvine and George Mallory had with them on their ill-fated 1924 push to the peak. Mallory’s body had been found in 1999, with no camera, and nearly 20 years later some sleuths thought they had a location for Irvine’s with the tantalizing possibility that the camera might be with him. And if they could find the camera, they could possibly determine if the pair had made it to the peak before meeting their end. A team gets put together including Synnott and they get funding to attempt the expedition for the 2019 climbing season – when Everest infamously “broke”. 

Synnott weaves together the history of the 1924 expedition, of the push to conquer the ‘third pole’ after successful expeditions to the north and south poles, the state of Everest climbing today, the 2019 season, and his personal experiences on the mountain. It isn’t evenly balanced, but Synnott does what I love best about these stories he tells us a universal truth by shedding light on the details.  

MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios (CBR15 #28)

I love the nitty gritty inner workings of how movies and television get made. It’s the reason why I listen to so many pop culture and Hollywood history podcasts. Podcasts are another reason I knew I was going to enjoy MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios. Two of its authors are podcasters that I have been listening to for the better part of a decade (Joanna Robinson and Dave Gonzales) and I trust them to be able to put together a narrative in a way that keeps me engaged and to do the work to bring a well-researched and nuanced take as they do in their various shows and articles.  

MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios delivers on that trust. The four years of research, interviews, writing, and addition of a third author in Gavin Edwards created a narrative that brings into focus all of the unlikely things that had to happen for Marvel Studios to exist in the first place and the strategies, luck, and good timing that led to the truly impressive track record and cultural phenomenon that it has become. I’m not a big comic book fan, but I watched almost all of the MCU content that has been put out since 2008 (well, with a significant drop off in Phase 4 which as the book chronicles is not necessarily uncommon). This book goes a long way to explaining the whys and how’s of fans like me and for fans like me. It even has its own version of a mid-credits’ scene, which while a bit silly is also indicative of the way in which this book was crafted.  

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. It has not effected the contents of this review, only its timing.