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Rating: 
Summary: Cook Revisited
Review: Here's another new edition from the great explorer, writer, photogrtapher and unique personality, Dr. Frederick Cook. This book joins "Through the First Antartic Night," and "My Attainment of the Pole" as welcome re-reads for some of us and will hopefully draw new readers who are interested in exploration. As usual, Cook's writing and photography are both very good and the story of the approach and climb of Mount Mckinley in Alaska (unbelievably difficult to approach, let alone climb, at that time) is a great read. Descriptions of both terrain and his climbing companions are vivid and memorable. Cook is of course better known as the center of a huge century old controversey (still going on today) over whether he really reached the North Pole. Those who wanted to push the claim of Robert Peary and discredit Cook, bribed Cook's climbing partner into denying they had made it to the top of Mount Mckinley in 1906. This effort was massively financed and largely successful in discreding both the Mckinley climb and Cook's later claim of having made it to the North Pole. The new material included in these books give some added ammunition in support of Cook's claims, but will probably not change many minds among those who have been involved in this debate. For the most part, opinions have become totally polarized and even nasty over the years. Best bet? Enjoy these books and make up your own mind. Whatever the truth, Cook as an explorer, writer and personality is well worth knowing.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic fake is quaintly amusing
Review: Originals of this rare book are expensive - $300 for a nice copy, so it is a public service to offer an affordable paperback. I first read the article Cook wrote in one of the magazines of the time; Century magazine I believe it was. Cook's fakery is well proven with Washburn's book The Dishonorable Dr. Cook, of course, but any book actually written by Dr. Cook is hilarious to read. That is why I bought this one after reading the article published in 1907. Cook's writing is described as "flowery" or "dramatic", but knowing he's a faker makes it so much fun to read. His North Pole book, by comparison, is mean spirited because by then he'd been exposed - in this work he is trying to come off as a serious explorer. Anyone who knows real mountaineering will have a good laugh at Cook with his leather boots (on ice walls???), silk tent that fits in his pocket, tent pole that doubles as an ice axe, sleeping bag that you wear as a parka, and very scant climbing details. But then he suddenly reaches the top of a world-class mountain. How'd he do it? He just climbed and gritted his teeth, and climbed some more! When he got hungry he had bread he'd baked himself ahead of time with home made pemmican. Amazingly naive, but he fooled a lot of folks. On a more bizarre note is the extra material from his trust-funded descendants who photographed Fred's earlier routes about McKinley on their camping trip in 1994. They must be something akin to the Flat Earth Society. Goes to show that if you never give up, even with a fake, you can get pretty far; although not to the top of Denali. A great gift for anyone you know who is a rock climber.
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