HIGH ADVENTURE is Sir Edmund Hillary's engaging and somewhat self-effacing account of the first recorded successful Everest ascent in 1953.An earlier reviewer describes Hillary as "a bigot," I suppose because he describes the Sherpas he worked with as "coolies." Of course, HIGH ADVENTURE was written in 1955, when attitudes were much different. And Hillary, far from being self-aggrandizing, seems to shun the spotlight.Certainly, Hillary makes fairly little of his pre-Everest climbs, although they undoubtedly made him a splendid mountaineer. His lyrical voice for settings and experiences is fine, though never as poetical as Peter Matthiessen in THE SNOW LEOPARD, who traversed much of the same ground.One of the shortcomings of this book is the lack of an Afterword in the new edition. One has to wonder what Hillary thinks of Everest's now chintzy, clockworked guided climbs. For a view from today's polluted top of the mountain read Jon Ktrakauer's INTO THIN AIR.