Books: Upward in Sneakers

AN INNOCENT ON EVEREST (319 pp.)—Ralph Izzard—Dutton ($3.75).

Lanky Ralph Izzard, foreign correspondent of the London Daily Mail, is not one to be intimidated by the impossible. When his editor ordered him off to Nepal to cover the British Everest Expedition and beat the Times of London, off he went. But how he could beat the Times, or even get the story, was a puzzler. The Times was subsidizing the expedition; by excluding all rivals from climb and climbers, it had a guaranteed airtight exclusive. Nonetheless, Correspondent Izzard, innocent as a fox, timid as a lion, moved in. An Innocent on Everest...