After hearing Greg Mortenson interviewed on PRI’s “The World” and NPR, I was really looking forward to reading his autobiography about how a failed attempt to scale Everest turned into a one man mission to build schools in rural Pakistan. Unfortunately, I was utterly and completely bored out of my mind and didn’t even make it half way through the title. While Mortenson himself is a unique personality with a fascinating life experience, this book was mostly ghost written by a staff writer for Parade Magazine. Maybe this was intentional because it’s not really like Mortenson needs to get people like me to realize that not all Muslims are terrorists and that the best way to combat extremism and terrorism is through education. However after 100 or so pages of cliches (“His mind raced wildly about like a small hysterical animal”) and references to Mortenson in the third person (when he’s supposed to be the main author and person telling the story), I gave up. There probably could be a fascinating and compelling book written about his life and work with the Central Asia Institute, but this book unfortunately is not it. But if it opens up the minds of a few Parade readers, that’s probably more important in the greater scheme of things.