Christmas Cracker: Learning To Breathe

Number two in our Christmas gifts for outdoors people suggestions is the best climbing book we've read this year, Learning To Breathe by Andy Cave.

Cave is one of the best climbers in the world, but even though he's sponsored by Lowe Alpine and has a big input into the design and development of their clothing and equipment, he's no media whore.

As a result he has a relatively low profile outside the climbing world, but you only have to look at hsi CV to realise just how much he's achieved, particularly in the greater ranges.

What makes Learning To Breathe a fantastic read is that not only does Cave have a dramatic story to tell, he also has an unassuming, highly readable, thoughtful writing style that draws you into his life and a gift for disarming honesty that makes you like him immediately.

Brought up in a Yorkshire mining community, Cave himself left school at 16 and went down the pit. The opening chapters where he describes the grim working conditions and cameraderie of the pit provide the darkness that makes the later chapters shine even more brightly.

Ironically the miners' strike, which destroyed the industry also provided the impetus and time which pushed him back into University education - he has a phD in socio-linguistics - and a life as a professional climber.

The second half of the book, where Cave talks mostly about his climbing career is more conventional, but again thoughtfully and honestly written. It's this, as much as anything, that makes the death of his climbing partner and friend Brendan Murphy in an avalance on Changabang so desperately sad. There's no pretence here of being some sort of mountaineering super-hero, just the crushing sadness of loss.

It's a book about light and dark in more than one way and a gripping, moving read. A great present for anyone into the outdoors and a worthy joint winner of this year's Boardman-Tasker award for mountain literature.

So far we've not read the other winner, Jim Perrin's biography of Don Whillans, The Villain, but if you're after two books...