THE MOUNTAINS OF MY LIFE By Walter Bonatti(Modern Library, $11.99) Walter Bonatti's The Mountains of My Life gathers, for the first time in English, the extraordinary writings of one of the world's greatest mountaineers. Born in Bergamo, Italy, Bonatti led a life of extreme and dedicated alpinism between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. He was part of the Italian expedition that achieved the first ascent of K2. In 1965, he achieved his last and greatest feat, the solo direct ascent of the Matterhorn north face in midwinter. Bonatti's preface to the collection is a remarkable anatomy of the soul of an adventurer. Solo mountaineering becomes part of a profound quest for self-discovery, rooted in a habit of solitude and reflection that could often be at odds with conventional forms of thinking and living. What Bonatti presents in many of these pieces amounts to a wonderfully lucid philosophy of alpinism. The 'value' of a climb is, for him, the sum of three inseparable and equally important elements, 'aesthetics, history and ethics'. This is his description of the 'courage' required to continually extend the boundaries of the possible in individual human lives: 'It is a civilized, responsible determination not to succumb to impending moral collapse. But ill-considered courage can be stupid, dangerous and meaningless.' HOW TO HAVE A BABY: OVERCOMING INFERTILITY By Aniruddha and Anjali Malpani(UBSPD, Rs 245) Aniruddha and Anjali Malpani's How To Have A Baby: Overcoming Infertility is a useful, humane and well-written book intelligently designed to give infertile couples a complete look at the infertility experience and 'to help them negotiate their way through the maze as efficiently as possible'. The approach is both practical and holistic. Infertility is seen as not only affecting two people in the deepest reaches of their physical, emotional and sexual lives, but also involving a larger community of friends, family and doctors. The Malpanis believe that being informed may make a difference in the woman's getting pregnant, helping her to determine that her time, effort and money are being well spent. This is an exhaustive and accessible manual that covers every aspect of infertility from both the man's and the wom- an's perspective. The chapters on the emotional and sexual stress of infertility and on adoption are written with remarkable candour and sensitivity. WAVESBy Sundara Ramaswamy (Manas, Rs 225) Sundara Ramaswamy 's Waves is an anthology of fiction and poetry by a famous modern Tamil writer. Ramaswamy's career spans more than fifty years and has produced poetry, short stories, novels, translations and criticism, all of which have been represented in this collection. The translations of Lakshmi Holmström, Gomathi Narayanan and A.R. Venkatachalapathy capture this wide range. 'The nature of this life and its insufficiency' and the need to 'understand Tamil life and ways' were Ramaswamy's 'fundamental' preoccupations.