On Top of the World: Five Women Explorers in Tibet

I have to congratulate Luree Miller who bought the stories of these five women to my attention. There were some intrepid lady travellers of the nineteenth and early 20th century, but not all of them are well known. This book gives potted histories of 5 of these women, three British, one french and one American - and their travels, trials and triumphs in the Himalayas. While I enjoyed the subject I found the telling a little stilted and at times unnecessary for instance Nina Marzuchelli's psychological relationship with her husband is examined. Now I know the reason why this was done as Nina had referred to her husband's demeanour herself, but I found Miller's own comments on it less than helpful at times - and in fact intrusive to the story. Each of these chapters is short - after all this is a collection and so the bare bones of the stories really has to suffice whereas I would assume there might be much more interesting long biographies on some of these women - for instance Anne Royle Taylor or Isabella Bird Bishop. There are some helpful maps and nice pictures - not enough pictures although I doubt there are many available for these women and for the period. I think this would be an ideal book to introduce today's intrepid travellers to just how intrepid lady travellers had to be to visit the Himalayas. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this book unless someone was travelling that way, it is not one of those gripping histories, but it is a good read for a sense of history of the place and of women travellers.

I love reading historical adventure books and this was as good as I expected. It was not a "page turner" but an interesting account of these women's explorations. I am surprised I have never heard of these women before as they were true pioneers. I recommend this to anyone who likes reading about travel adventures.

An excellent book in that rather small group of books on women explorers. An entertaining read. Could be read by high school or possibly middle school readers but does not talk down to them. Discusses English lady travelers (Nina Mazuchelli, Annie Taylor, Isabella Bird Bishop), the American Fanny Bullock Workman and the French Alexandra David-Neel. Contains the amusing incident of competition between Fanny Bullock Workman and Annie Smith Peck. Since Peck's entire story is not told, she looks a bit like a doofus in this conflict. I suspect modern readers would find her more sympathetic if they knew the whole story. (Fanny looked down on Annie because she wore bloomers to climb mountains. Modern readers would find Fanny's insistence on mountain climbing in long skirts bizarre.) The stories are told concisely but with sufficient detail for most readers. Appropriate maps and black and white photos increase the enjoyment of the text. I would recommend it to anyone interested in women's history or the history of Tibet or the history of mountain climbing.