Enough: Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest

Reid, who in 2016 became the first American woman to summit and descend Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen debuts with a spirited account of her climbing career. After weathering a troubled childhood in Montana, Reid fled to Iowa with her boyfriend when she was 17. There, a coworker introduced her to mountaineering, for which she displayed an immediate knack. As Reid catalogs a string of failed relationships, an abortion at age 22, and her struggles against misogyny in the climbing world, she writes rapturously of the control she felt on the mountain. A failed attempt to climb Everest without oxygen in 2010, plus the death of a sherpa on a different climb in the same year, formed a pivotal point in Reid’s life and climbing career, forcing her to disentangle her relationship with mountaineering from her desires for excellence and admiration. The final section charts Reid’s healing—she cofounded the Juniper Fund, an organization to support families of sherpas who have died in the field, successfully summited Everest without oxygen, and started a family, reveling in the pleasures of marriage and motherhood. This is exhilarating. Agent: Liz Parker, Verve Talent & Literary. (Apr.)