Paths of Glory - Audio CD - Unabridged Author:Jeffrey Archer, Roger Allam (Narrator) Some people have dreams that are so magnificent that if they were to achieve them, their place in history would be guaranteed. People like Francis Drake, Robert Scott, Charles Lindbergh, Amy Johnson, Edmund Hillary, Neil Armstrong, Lewis and Clark, Christopher Columbus, Isaac Newton, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Edison, and Nancy Astor are... more » such individuals.
But what if one man had such a dream, and once he'd fulfilled it, there was no proof that he had achieved his ambition?
Jeffrey Archer's latest book, Paths of Glory, is the story of such a man -- George Mallory. Born in 1886, he was a brilliant student who became part of the Bloomsbury Group at Cambridge in the early twentieth century and served in the Royal Garrison Artillery during World War I. After the war, he married, had three children, and would have spent the rest of his life as a schoolteacher, but for his love of mountain climbing.
Mallory once told an American reporter that he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, "because it is there." On his third attempt in 1924, at age thirty-seven, he was last seen six hundred feet from the top. His body was found in 1999, and it still remains a mystery whether he and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, ever reached the summit.
In fact, not until you've heard every word of Archer's extraordinary novel, inspired by a true story, will you be able to decide if George Mallory's name should be added to that list of legends, while another name would have to be removed. Paths of Glory is truly a triumph.
Unabridged - 9 CDs - 11 hours - read by Roger Allam« less