The Ascent of Rum Doodle

This is absurd. The fact that Bill Bryson loved it intrigued me (you have to read his Note from a Small Island), but I think Bryson is much funnier. It does make fun of mountaineering, and I think anyone who would want to climb Everest is a little crazy.

I would not have put it on the list, but...

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Originally published in Britain in the 1950s at the peak of mountaineering’s prominence in the public eye—Everest, after all, had just been conquered in 1953—The Ascent of Rum Doodle is an inspired send-up of expedition books in general, and of climbing and its literature in particular. Imagine Three Men in a Boat Go Mountaineering or Monty Python Climbs the Matterhorn, and you’ll get some idea of the hilarity Bowman provokes in this small gem of literary comedy.