But we found it pretty transformative, as we did find the whales, and we saw, too, many many other species of animals and birds we dutifully recorded along the way. It is rich with sensory detail – capturing the sights, tastes, smells, sounds and textures of the author’s journey, along with his observations and feelings of his experience. For example, cultural similarities of Eskimo, Native American and the peoples of Nepal and Tibet and Japan are discussed. Hillard gives us a splendid vicarious adventure that ranges from enduring blizzards with only a tent for shelter to the elation of observing a leopard with cubs… Publishers Weekly.

Behind and below, among swirls made by snow gleam and the ice-broken black brook, a surreal figure very like my own pursues me across the vast floor of the mountains. Matthiessen watches foxes hunting and griffons soaring overhead; he marvels at alpine birds and flora. Her summers were spent creating comic strips, getting kittens to follow her home, and playing Barbie beauty pageant with the neighbor girls (which her Barbie never won, since she had the unfortunate habit of tripping and falling during the swimsuit competition or trying to pull off a talent for which she was clearly unprepared).It is a book that celebrates the spark of life that propels us towards transcending our heavy human existence in pursuit of something. Matthiessen senses that “There is power in the air” as the three discuss the yeti, with one man saying, “I think the yeti is a Buddhist” (p. I'm a little embarrassed to say I hadn't paid attention to much of Matthiessen's work before he died. Admittedly, I don't agree with his philosophy, though after reading Thich Nhat Hanh, Thoreau and Emerson and Joseph Campbell within the last few months, I also felt as if the way Matthiessen conveyed Buddhist philosophy was trite.

Along the way he describes his spiritual quest based on the principles of Zen Buddhism in the wake of his wife’s death from cancer. There is something special in how his earnest Buddhism tangles together with his mysticism, his longings, his mountain experiences, the snow leopard - more elusive than enlightenment, how he fixates on one of the sherpas regarding him as enlightened as as the potential teacher who appears when the student is ready. Or, you could divide it into three distinct sections this way: A short section that took place in India and Kathmandu, setting the stage and filled with, absolutely packed with people; a long hike through rural Nepal, encountering small villages along the way; and finally the experience in the high mountains, in which the human population was whittled down to his own climbing party (a German ecologist and several sherpas), plus a few monks here and there. His thrilling poetic descriptions of the Himalayas make it all seem timeless, eternal, on the one hand, separate from selfish humans, and yet also fragile, in many ways, vulnerable to human devastation.At one time Rodney suffered a snow leopard bite from a cat that didn’t realise it was helping science and the species future J and the team had to postpone the study for a month while Rodney got treatment. A two month climb under hard conditions in which he takes the time to mingle with the natives, connect with a Buddhist spirituality and smell the roses, in this case, Everest’s fauna and animals. The final verdict is that I'm glad I read this, even though I was not swayed by its central argument. These two men schlepped not only journals but books and various equipment up and down some of the most forbidding terrain in the world.

The Nepalese landscape of the voyage is a spiritually rich and mystical place, where what can be measured by science exists side by side with mystical things that defy scientific knowledge. I listened to this read by Gunnar Johnson in Swedish, the translation having been done by Maj Frisch. On the back of the book it's described as a "spiritual journey" and I could have used much less of the "spiritual. Matthiessen knows his lichens, plants, rocks and especially his birds, which he catalogues in studious detail.It was an area difficult to obtain permission for, and that permission was often not enough to stop the local police turning travellers back. In The Big Snow Leopard Book for Kids, from top-selling non-fiction author Jenny Kellett you will learn only the best snow leopard facts that kids will love.