Annapurna by Maurice Herzog

A canonical mountaineering book about the 1950 French expedition to climb an 8,000-meter peak that is absolutely wild; two-thirds is about the difficulty of locating the giant mountain, and the last third is a harrowing and unnervingly cheerful account of the costs of summiting it (many, many, MANY fingers and toes). It’s littered with mildly shocking midcentury details like pills popped and trash tossed at the very summit of the mountain.