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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Colin Thubron - To a Mountain in Tibet

Book of the Week: Colin Thubron - To a Mountain in Tibet: Episode 1

Factual: Travel

To a Mountain in Tibet

Episode 1

Colin Thubron - To a Mountain in Tibet

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Colin Thubron - To a Mountain in Tibet, Episode 1

Renowned travel writer Colin Thubron climbs Mount Kailas in Tibet, the holiest of places.

4 Extra Debut. Renowned travel writer Colin Thubron climbs Tibet's Mount Kailas, one of the holiest places in the world. Read by Stephen Boxer. Episode 1 of 5.

"By trekkers' standards our party is small and swift: a guide, a cook, a horse-man, myself. We move scattered above the river, while loan traders pass us the other way, leading their stocky horse and mule-trains between lonely villages. They look fierce and open, and laughingly meet your eyes. The delicacy of the plains has gone..."

Renowned travel writer Colin Thubron is about to climb Mount Kailis in Tibet, one of the holiest places in the world and hardly visited by westerners. Its slopes are rugged, glacial, and peopled by the toughest types alive. Its slopes are also full of stories: Hindu and Buddhist tales of struggle, devotion and intrigue. But on from these lower reaches, Kailis' s peak rises sacrosanct. Forbiddingly distant. And it is here that Thubron casts his gaze, then walks towards, as listeners can discover in his new account.

1. In the first of five episodes, abridged by Penny Leicester, the author begins his ascent of Mount Kailas with trusty guide and cook in tow. But what exactly lies ahead?, he asks himself.

Reader Stephen Boxer.
Producer Duncan Minshull.

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Travel writer Colin Thubron's account of climbing the holy Mount Kailas in Tibet

Travel writer Colin Thubron's account of climbing the holy Mount Kailas in Tibet. Read by Stephen Boxer

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