Intimate, exhilarating writings on adventure, meditation, and life in the captivating wildness of the Himalayan Mountains with contributions from Amitav Ghosh, Mark Twain, Rabindranath Tagore, Peter Matthiessen, and more.

For some, the Himalaya is a frontier against which people test themselves. Others find refuge and tranquility in the mountains, a place where they can seek their true selves, perhaps even God. Over millennia, the mountains have cradled civilization itself and nurtured teeming, irrepressible life. With over thirty essays, this exhilarating anthology offers a dazzling range of voices that reveal accounts of great ascents and descents from reflecting on a deadly avalanche to searching for a snow leopard and enjoying the simple pleasure of riding a handcar down a railway track. These diverse writings bring to life the spirit of the Himalaya in an unparalleled panorama.

Himalayan: A Literary Homage to Adventure, Meditation, and Life on the Roof of the World, Ruskin Bond and Namita Gokhale, Shambhala, Paperback, 302 pp, $22.95

Namita Gokhale is a best-selling author whose books include Paro: Dreams of Passion, A Himalayan Love Story, The Book of Shadows, Shakuntala, and The Book of Shiva. She is the codirector of the Jaipur Literary Festival and of the Bhutan literary festival Mountain Echoes.