Without Ever Reaching the Summit

International bestseller Paolo Cognetti, author of The Eight Mountains, on the quiet joys of not racing straight to the snowy peak

An awestruck love letter to one of the most spectacular places on earth, from the author of international bestseller The Eight Mountains.

Paolo Cognetti marked his 40th birthday with a journey he had always wanted to make: to Dolpo, a remote Himalayan region where Nepal meets Tibet. He took with him two friends, a notebook, mules and guides, and a well-worn copy of The Snow Leopard. Written in 1978, Matthiessen's classic was also turning forty, and Cognetti set out to walk in the footsteps of the great adventurer.

Without Ever Reaching the Summit combines travel journal, secular pilgrimage, literary homage and sublime mountain writing in a short book for readers of Macfarlane, Rebanks and Cognetti's own bestseller, The Eight Mountains. An investigation into the author's physical limits, an ancient mountain culture, and the magnificence of nature, it is an awestruck love letter to one of the most spectacular places on earth.

'A breath of fresh air for mountain-lovers currently in confinement...The sparse, graceful prose...reflects the barren landscape and the author's joy in paring back the distractions of modern life' Financial Times, Best Books of 2020