Climbing Books

This autobiography is one of the most appealing in its genre. From the first page one is captivated by the tone of the writing. There is no bravado in these pages, no dull lists of achievements and summits gained. Instead one is immersed in the mountains and can fully understand the impact they had on this mountaineers life, from early boy-hood onwards. For those who know the beauty of the mountains this is a book for you.

If you like climbing, and you like cartoons, you'll love Tami Knight. The best climbing cartoons since Sheridan Anderson, of course I don't know of many climbing cartoonists who are published anyway. Her illustrations aren't as polished as Anderson's, but her humor is right on. She pokes fun at all styles of climbing from sport to alpine. Being female, she might focus a lot on the machismo of climbing, but after all, there is more material there to work with.

Route finding in the Tetons can be difficult. Richards topo + text book of the classic climbs is a great, concise and compact guide that will get you there and on route, and back down. Has most of the routes most technical climbers will do. Past that - you're copying topos out of the brag book so....

This is a book of absolute necessity for anyone who claims to be a mountaineer, and there are few true mountaineers from any school of the art anymore. Showing one of the - if not the first - crucial turning points for the Sherpa people as simple labourors for foolhardy, selfish foreigners to the truest examples of mountaineers on the world's great peaks.

For the history alone, and for Neale's obvious reverence for the Sherpas of Nanga Parbat, this book is an important addition to mountain literature.

This is one of the best book on Clematis that I have read so far. The one mystery of Clematis is what pruning class is my Clematis is in? This book helps you solve the mystery so that you prune your Clematis correctly for the best flowering results.

Reviewer: A reader from New Zealand Peak of a climber's career

7 Summits Solo, (Summit, USA) by Robert Mads Anderson To Everest via Antarctica, Robert Mads Anderson Reviewed by Neil Nelson, The Evening Standard, Wellington, New Zealand Saturday, February 24, 1996

Having spent the past 20 years scaling some of the world's most difficult peaks, American-born Aucklander Robert Anderson set himself a new challenge: to climb the highest peak on each of the world's seven continents.

As an added challenge, he elected to climb them solo.

Ultimately, he failed in his bid, with Everest getting the better of him on two separate occasions. But failure to stand on the top of the world's highest peak doesn't diminish Anderson's achievement or the highly readable accounts he has written of his adventures.

As the price tags would suggest, the two books which have resulted from his seven summits project are totally different.

7 Summits Solo is a large-format, lavishly produced, 160-page volume which includes dozens of superb colour photographs taken by Joe Blackburn during the expedition (Note, nearly all photos in the book are Anderson's).

Anderson's account of the expedition is essentially a précis of the story he tells in To Everest via Antarctica. The 220 page Penguin book (Stackpole Books, USA) contains just a handful of photographs, but includes a far more detailed account of Anderson's adventures.

During the past decade or so, I've read numerous accounts of climbing expeditions: this one rates as one of the best.

Unlike some mountaineers, who feel compelled to describe in minute detail everything they did during the expedition, Anderson concentrates more on the adventures he had actually getting to the mountain.

He admits it is more of a travel book than a book about climbing and that he wrote it for a broader market.

Some chapters have little to do with climbing at all. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Anderson's descriptions of his travels in Russia, late in 1992, after conquering Mt Elbrus, Europe's highest peak. With Elbrus out of the way, and three weeks left on his Russian visa, Anderson decided the opportunity to see some of Russia was too good an opportunity to miss.

With the Russia of old rapidly being split into a series of new countries, and new border crossings appearing at random, it was decided a large bus would be the easiest way of moving around. One was soon found and with several companions Anderson set off for a fascinating tour of parts of Russia which had seldom seen Western tourists. The tales he relates of his journey make for absorbing and humorous reading.

With a degree in writing and a career spent mainly in the advertising industry - the business he set up in New Zealand and subsequently sold helped fund his seven summits project - Anderson wastes few words. He has an economical, easy-to-read style and knows how to tell a good story.

While the price of 7 Summits Solo means it's unlikely to appear on best-seller lists, To Everest via Antarctica deserves to be. One of the most enjoyable books I read in 1995, I look forward to reading of Anderson's further adventures.

A fantastic read, totally compelling and involving. The fact that Paul Prtichard has actually gone through the experiences he describes is astounding. a book that leaves you feeling totally content with the world when you close the last page.

Especially good if you are laid up with a climbing injury!

Once again Professor Ellis has top-roped us Phillistines onto the challenging academic ledge that embraces the exploration narrative as powerful literature. Honestly, his scintillating start is followed by an even more promising introduction that speaks to the Gore-tex and fleece crowd, and draws a circle at base camp. While paying heed to scholarly conventions, Ellis' familar style shares an adrenaline-laced tale with the rest of us that emerges from the dusty and stained journals from the likes of London's Alpine Club. His insightful portrayal of Mackinder's 1899 imperial ascent of Mt. Kenya ressurects images of the Duke of Abruzzi, and his equally thoughtful recitation of Noel's 1924 film documentary of the British expedition on Everest is the stuff of current fancy. But Dr. Ellis initiates the reader 's stunned self-arrest at 58 year old Annie Smith Peck's amazing first ascent of Huascar'an in 1908. Peck, the original post modernist, is equally comfortable planting a banner, VOTES FOR WOMEN, on the summit, as she is detailing the arduous athletic nature of mountaineering and commenting on the rich social, cultural and geographical landscape from which the massif juts. One can only hope that Ellis will abandon his fine research, and ancient volumns, and chronicle his own peripatetic life's journey up the scree slopes of distant desolate peaks; after all, that's where the real story begins. 5.12

Great book for stories on climbers in Yosemite!

A terrific piece of writing by Jim Perrin about this hard man of grit who left his mark on hard gritstone rock and the people in that climbing arena then--and even now.
But given the background that the author manages to reveal through his writing about this great icon and his true word craft that paints a Lowry image of Don (not so much a stick figure though!)in a tough northern environment, why is Don Whillans painted as a villain? Maybe a rebel, but a hero not a villain. Sorry Jim, I cannot see the title being right for Don, but its just my opinion:)..Mind you I never got whacked by Don in a few of the times I met him, but his routes are stronger testament to his rebellion to authority than his social exploits.
It was a large project for the author, but very worthwhile to document what needed to be told--warts and all.
Its a bit of climbing history that was special at that time.
Isn't the route described in the book Ferdies Folly at Ravenstones, actually Freddys Folly?
Great.