Alexander von Humboldt Über einen Versuch den Gipfel des Chimborazo zu ersteigen (On Climbing Mount Chimborazo) Edited and with an essay by Oliver Lubrich and Ottmar Ette Eichborn Verlag, September 2006, 192 pp ISBN: 3-8218-0767-9 Next spring will see the English-language publication of Daniel Kehlmann's entertaining and intelligent book about the scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. It has been a huge success in Germany and ripples of anticipation are already being felt elsewhere. One consequence it may have is a general renewal of interest in the first-named of the pair. If so, this book could be the perfect companion piece. One of the foremost thinkers of the late Enlightenment, Humboldt's writing style was also most vibrant and humorous and this account of an abandoned attempt of the ascending of Mount Chimborazo is revealing both in terms of what was being attempted and the light it casts on the man. His notes, essays and reports by Humboldt make for dramatic reading, and the helpful foreword by the editors argue convincingly that he was a self-conscious scientist who knew about the limitations of logic and measurement in the face of the human condition and the forces of nature, as well as expertly guiding the reader through the transcribed documents that make up the work. A book that falls into the generic borderline of travel account and scientific prose (perhaps best compared to The Journal of Captain Cook). This meticulously organised work about, and by, a man constantly pressing beyond prevailing barriers, is most appealing, not least in its design.