Hello,
I was just wondering if anyone could recommend some Mountaineering books, (as in true 'novel' style ones as opposed to manuals). Enjoyed 'The Everest Years' by Chris Bonnington , 'Doctor on Everest' by Ken Kalmer and 'Left for Dead' by Beck Wethers (sp?) (all good reads BTW), and was wondering what else you reccomend, cos whenever I pick one up in the libary they always seem to be cliche ridden trash.

Cheers

Dave

PS Does this count as gear? Couldn't think of any place to put it LOL.

This could very well be a HUGE thread! my quick reply about a newish book would be

"Touching my father soul" by Jamling Tenzing a superb read.

oops that should be Jamling Tenzing Norgay

My favourite oldies are "The White Spider" by Heinrich Harrer and "Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage" by Hermann Buhl, but I have quite a big collection of books of this type.
Most books by Chris Bonington are a good read, then of course there is "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson and "Savage Arena" by Joe Tasker. I could go on......

This is very upsetting; I wanted to recommend the one by Pete Boardman and the one by Andy Fanshawe too, but I have been searching my bookshelves and both have gone missing:-(
Sorry, I can't remember the titles of either. But they are a very good read :-)

The Boardman book is called "Sacred Summits" and the Fanshawe book is called "Coming Through". Still can't find them though.

There's:

"Into thin air" by Jon Krakauer.

"Regions of the heart" by Ed Douglas and some one else.

"The death zone" by Matt Dickinson.

Although these two are not "mountaineering" books they are a cracking read:

"Endurance" by Alfred Lansing - About Ernest Shackeltons epic.

"Scott's last expedition", by erm , Capt Robert Falcon Scott RN.

Apologies about the spelling of Shackleton there btw.

Would recommend anything by Chris Bonnington and Joe Simpson. Just finished reading The Hard Years by Joe Brown which is worth a look

Thanks everyone, on the subject of none - mountaineering books, two I'd recommend would be 'To the ends of the earth' and 'Mind over matter' both by Ranulph Fiennes.

Cheers everyone, keep um comin LOL, looks like Ill be busy LOL

Am I the only one who finds Touching the Void impossible to get into and Chris Bonington's style really dull???

On second thoughs don't answer that...keep the book titles coming.

I thought Touching the Void was compulsive reading.

Me too. Unputdownable.

Another unputdownable book, though not strictly mountaineering, was "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz. Stayed up all night reading that a few months ago, and I haven't done that for a long time.

Another vote for Touching the Void.
Into the Wilderness by Jon Krakauer isnt a mountaineering book either, but its sort of outdoors related and I found I was morbidly fascinated by it.

Part way through The Beckoning Silence by Joe Simpson, but I'm finding that one rather hard going.

Si

Touching The Void? Impossible to put down, I think This Game of Ghosts is also an excellent read and the latest one as well, sorry, forgotten the name.

Bonington? Quite pedestrian writing style, but you can't deny where he's been or what he's done.

The White Spider's quite humbling and a thing of its time, The Climb by Anatoly Boukriev is worth reading as an antidote to Krakauer and to get an alternative perspective on the Everest disaster thing.

If you can find it, Feeding The Rat, by Al Alvarez, which is a biography of Mo Anthoine, one of the unsung British climbers - he was with Bonington and Scott on the Ogre - is superb and inspirational, plus very well written.

Mark Twight - mad, maverick, American climber - has written a brilliant all round climbing manual 'Extreme Alpinism' which I'd recommend to anyone who's into big mountains and wants to short circuit some of the hard learning process stuff by benefitting from Twight's. He's also published an uncomfortable collection of his intense magazine articles called 'Kiss Or Kill'. It's quite dark and introverted and exploratory and it's something to dip into rather than read straight off, but sometimes totally inspired.

I'd second the Tasker / Boardman stuff, expecially Savage Arena, also Victor Saunders book Elusive Summits.

Oh, and Andrew Greig - Scottish poet and good writer - his expedition book 'Summit Fever' is a nice, warts and all account of a Himalayan trip with Mal Duff, which he began as a non-climber. He's also written a superb novel called 'Electric Brae' about a love triangle, two of the corners of which are climbers. That's one of the best books I've ever read, though only tenuously a climbing book at all.

I could go on, but I don't think I shall.

"High Exposure: an enduring passion for Everest and other unforgiving places", by David Breashears. This is the chap who filmed the Imax large format Everest film and so you get the ins and outs of how the film came about. Breashers is a gifted writer as well as an experienced mountaineer and so I raced through this book.

I too found Touching the Void fairly gripping.

I would also reccommend No Picnic on Mount Kenya by Felice Benuzzi. This is Benuzzi's account of escaping from a British prisoner of war camp (he was an Italian soldier who was captured in Ethiopia in 1936 and sent to a camp in Kenya), setting out to climb Mount Kenya and then returning to the camp afterwards to give himself up. He and his companions only had what they could build and pilfer from the camp for equipment.

Try Bear Gryllis's autobiography - Facing Up. Fantastic read, well written, interesting and amusing. He's the guy who climed Everest at 23 only a year after breaking his back in a parachute accident. Plays a little too much on religon though but each to their own I suppose.

Any book by Joe Simpson. 'Touching the void' is probably his best, 'The beckoning silence' his latest.

Just finished 'The climb' by de Walt/Boukreev, which as Jon says gives a balance to 'Into thin air' by Krakauer. Krakauer's book is written in a more enjoyable style, but suffers from him looking for a scapegoat for the events leading to the 1996 Everest disaster.

Picked up 'White spider' from the library this lunchtime after many recommendations.

Seven years in Tibbet is also an excellent book.