3 JUNE 1955, Page 23

Eight-Thousanders

K2—THE SAVAGE MOUNTAIN. By Charles Houston and Robert Bates. (Collins, 25s.) I owN I had tended to regard the 1953 American expedition to K2, second highest mountain in the world, which failed to climb it, as a mere prelude to the Italian expedition a few months later, which succeeded. The Americans' own account—it passes from hand to hand, all in the same pleasant and unpretentious style, though only the names of Houston and Bates appear on the title- page—puts it in its proper perspective as one of the great stories of mountaineering, comparable with Annapurna or the Matter- horn.

ELIZABETH COXHEAD