UKC

I am looking for some new titles to read.

Currently reading through Joe Tasker's Savage Arena and I really, really like it but I would like to read about some other mountains/expeditions than the ones in the Himalayas and Karakoram, as I get the sense that I am reading the same histories over and over again, just written by different authors. 

So I would like to know if people can recommend me some books which are similar in tone and feel to Savage Arena, Sacred Summits, The Shining Mountain, Conquistadores of The Useless, etc. but with a bit more focus on Pagagonia, the Andes or maybe the Caucasus? 

I've tried to search online but it's mostly guide books that I find or the usual 'best' mountaineering books, which tend to mostly be about the Himalayas, Alps or Karakoram. Nothing wrong with those obviously, it's just that I have already read about them quite extensively. 

Thanks!

Slightly different in tone but I enjoyed 'no picnic on mount kenya' a real oddity, Italian POWs breaking out of a prison camp to climb the mountain. 

Ooh that sounds interesting, thanks! 

Or closer to home anything by WH Murray,

Tilman and Shipton were good writers too, various expeditions around the world including the hamalaya though.

Enjoy 

Ah yes, I think Mountaineering in Scotland could be the sort of thing I was looking for, thanks!

Walter Bonatti's first two books are awesomely gripping reads (On the Heights and The Great Days) though they are somewhat pricey. Mick Fowlers books are also very good and Andy Cave's 'Learning to breathe' is excellent.

Thanks!

Nothing to do with climbing but I'd really recommend The Darkness Beckons by Martyn Farr. It's a history of cave diving both UK and abroad and written by a cave diver. Full of gripping original exploration tales and lots of terrifyingly fatal incidents. A bit like the exploration of space.

Paul Pritchard's "Deep Play" is excellent (Boardman-Tasker Winner) and features his climbing exploits in Patagonia. Vladimir Shataev's "Degrees of Difficulty" is basically an autobiography of a legendary Russian/Caucasus mountaineer.

Both sound great, thanks!

If you enjoy Murray, then One Man's Mountains by Tom Patey? More of a collection of essays than a single tale but it does range from the Cairngorms to the Karakorum (Mustagh Tower with Joe Brown). It made me nostalgic for a time and a scene I was never part of. It's a shame he died young.

Just read the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. Nothing else is worth your time until you have devoured these. 
 

no, they aren’t about climbing or mountaineering. They are about space Romans doing hunger games. And it’s brill. 

Try The Bond by Simon McCartney.  Terrific book; about mountaineering in Alaska.

And though (in typical UKC style) this isn't what you asked for, you might also want to look out for In Some Lost Place by Sandy Allan.  That's about climbing Nanga Parbat, which may not have been covered in your previous reading.

T.

Not quite right - Some Lost Place is by Sandy Allan, but it was his Nanga Parbat companion Rick Allen who recently lost his life on K2. 

Some Lost Place is a marvellous book - the tale of the descent is an astonishing account of survival. 

Thank you for the correction, I've changed the post.

T.

Sounds like it is worth my time! Thanks!

They both are.  Different from each other in lots of ways but each is a very worthwhile read.

T.

Two unusual adventures narrated by Tilman was his cycle ride across Africa, and his account of his time in SOE working with partisans in Italy/ Albania I think? Brilliant reads and different to the usual expedition books. A great writer.

Also Wade Davis, Into the Silence about the early Everest climbers and their Great War experience. eg. Somerville was a surgeon on the first day of the Somme battle working in a field hospital. Harrowing stuff...

Others worth reading are

Hermann Buhl,

Sepp Jochler,

and Rebuffat

and for something a little different, Appley Cherry-Garrard's  'Worst Journey in the World'.

There's a fair bit on Patagonia in 'Mountains of my Life' by Walter Bonatti, including some mad walking adventure he went on long after he quit climbing.

If you are after something a bit different I would recommend 'On High Hills' by Geoffrey Winthrop Young.  Also just finished 'The Great Climbing Adventure' by John Barry, it's a great book and written in a totally different way to the cliche mountaineering autobiography..

That is such a great book, read it twice already!

Free Country by George Mahood. George and his mate attempt to cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats despite having no bicycles, shoes, clothes or money by basically blagging everything.

Hi. 

It's more autobiographical and quite some time since I read it, but I believe The Calling by Barry Blanchard contains quite a lot about the author’s experience in Canada, Alaska and Peru.

Also... It's not exactly mountaineering, but I have just finished Miracle In The Andes by Nando Parrado and thought it was great. Certainly harrowing in places but very inspiring and a great story whichever way you look at it.

One of the stand out pieces of 'mountain writing' I can recall is The Devil's Thumb by Jon Krakauer although it's only 10 pages in length. I have no idea if it's an extract from a book or a stand alone piece of writing.

How about

Seven Years in Tibet - Heinrich Harrar

A short Walk in the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby

The Worst Journey in the World - Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Dave

It's in Eiger Dreams, it's definitely a great piece of mountain writing!

This, and another of his brilliant books, "The Last Grain Race" - epic mast climbing! Both great for a little light relief!

Did you read the original account (Alive!) written soon after the plane crash in the seventies? I'm currently reading I Had to Survive by Dr Roberto Canessa. He was the other survivor who walked out for help with Nando Parrado. A real survival epic that puts the likes of Grylls into proper perspective.

The Tower, Kelly Cordes.

Very definitely Patagonia, about Cerro Torre, Cesare Maestri and more. 

(No Picnic is excellent as is W. H. Murray) 

I'm hallway through this, very good. I went to a Donini lecture in Nottingham in the late 70s when he called out Maestri's claim.

I have a photo of Maestri climbing at Froggatt c1973 when he attended the BMC Buxton conference, must dig it out.

That must have been an interesting lecture! 

Yeah I have read that one too... (Well, sort of, I have listened to the audiobook version, but same same)

It's interesting as I'm fairly certain that Parrado refers to Alive in his book. I think he credits it as being a great account of the event but lacking the ability to convey the emotion of what happened as it wasn't written directly by a survivor - understandable.

I've not heard of Canessa’s version but will add it to the list for sure - thanks. There were so many personalities on that plane so I'm sure each survivor’s experience can be written differently in as many ways as they are similar.

The Mountain of my Fear by David Roberts about the groundbreaking first ascent of the west face of Mt. Huntingdon in Alaska in 1965. One of the classics of mountaineering literature by a proper writer. He has written plenty of other great stuff too, including co-writing Alone on the Wall with Alex Honnold.

Enduring Patagonia by Gregory Crouch is a gripping account of an obsession with climbing Cerro Torre.

Robert and Lankyman, both have been put on the list, thanks!

Can't believe I forgot into the silence, loved it! Highly recommended

And I always recommend 'barrows boys' 90 degrees north' and 'killing drqgons' Fergus Fleming, probably my desert island reading! 

The ending in ED is slightly different than the original version published in Mountain magazine.

Not massively so but I was a little disappointed 'cos I bought ED for that very article.

Do you know which edition of Mountain offhand?

Renee de Maison, Total Alpinism, is a good read. In the Alps though of course : )

In one (at least) of his books he writes about S America, but maybe not available in English?

Staying not far from Kingsdale at the moment so I was thinking about The Darkness Beckons yesterday. It’s brilliant- my l palms were sweating reading some sections. 

Sorry, I don't know.

There might be some kind of Mountain magazine index but I only had time for a quick search.Supertopo seem to have had a discussion in 2008 and that's as far as I got!

That’s always my default recommendation, an incredible book. 
 

OP: My Life by Anderl Heckmair is a good read. There is a lot  of interest in addition to the Eiger ascent and his other major climbs in the Alps.

Very odd, just looked in Eiger Dreams. 11 out of 12 essays are mentioned as where previously published. The Devils Thumb is not attributed.

I'm convinced it was in Mountain! I remember the layout, the photo (looking down icefield between his front points). I really can't believe I'm imagining all this.

I certainly hope not otherwise I might be imagining other large sections of my life.......☹️

Have you (and Lankyman) read Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson.

It's not cave diving as such but might as well be. The true story about some gnarly East Coast deep wreck divers who find a U Boat off the coast of New Jersey. Unfortunately it's lying at 75 metres..........but they still go inside it.

Totally gripping.

E

I remember a few years ago showing Keld Head to some German walkers and relating the Dead Man's Handshake incident to them. As soon as I mentioned Jochen Hasenmeyer they knew exactly who I was referring to. Apparently, he was quite well known in Germany. I think he came to a sticky end in the Fontaine de Vaucluse some years later? I once saw Oliver Statham and Geoff Yeadon in the Hill Inn but as a stupid 18 year old could not strike up a conversation. By accident, I stumbled across Oliver's grave in Cowgill over in Dentdale. He committed suicide not long after they got the world underground diving record at Keld Head. So very sad.

I may have read this, not sure. Did a father and son die down there? In a similar vein it reminds me of a book by an American deep wreck diver with an Indian name (Chowdry?). That was a great read too. I think they went down to a big liner that sank in the St Lawrence River (sister ship of the Lusitania or Titanic?). Why am I so hopeless at remembering book titles and authors?!!

The Games Climbers Play

Further scratching this itch tells me that it was published in Outside magazine but I'm pretty sure I'd never heard of Outside at the time.

Another blog then tells me it was first published in Mountain.....

https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/climbing-into-jon-krakauer-legendary-mount...

OK so my take is the chapter in Eiger Dreams is sufficiently different to the earlier Mountain article that it is not credited in the anthology and you correctly remember that they differed.

Still doesn't help with the issue number unfortunately.

I remember it from Mountain.

Yes, and although Maestri showed a film of soloing some extreme climb in the Dolomites, and was harangued by Ken Wilson for his Cerro Torre claimed ascent, but he received a warm standing ovation from the audience.

Kelly Cordes writes with great sympathy towards Maestri. A man undermined by hubris he appears to have been better than he is sometimes portrayed. One rash claim that he couldn't take back ruined him and outweighed his achievements. A tragedy on many levels. Not least the eclipsing of Toni Egger remembered more for his unknowing association with a dubious claim than for being the superb alpiniste that he was.

Great book 'The Tower' and written by one of the nicest people you will ever meet. (Pretty superb climber too) 

I haven’t read it but it sounds like one for the reading list!

It’s still Himalayan but if you want an antidote to the Himalayan literature of the 70’s why not try Wade Davis’s “Into the Silence” which is about the original 1920’s Everest trips. For me its most vivid feature (apart from an omnipresent shadow of WW1) is the portrait of the sheer breadth of exploration of an area that really wasn’t known other than by the people who lived there.

Edit - Just seen it’s already been recommended twice! +1 from me….

No, sorry, it doesn't ☹️ but I've got a mate on the case.

Just because it's bugging me,....

It's definitely a great book!

That's the one. Chris and Chrissie Rouse who were forced to bolt to the surface from 70m with catastrophic effects. Grim.

E