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Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature 2022 - Shortlist Announced

© Boardman Tasker Award

The six shortlisted books in the 2022 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature have been announced. This year there were 40 entries, from Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Peru and the USA.

The 2022 Boardman Tasker Award shortlist.  © Boardman Tasker Award
The 2022 Boardman Tasker Award shortlist.
© Boardman Tasker Award

The Boardman Tasker Award was established in 1983 to commemorate the lives of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker – outstanding mountaineers and accomplished authors – who disappeared together high on Everest in 1982. The £3,000 prize is presented annually to the author or co-authors of an original work that has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature

The final Award will be announced at the Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors and Awards event at the Kendal Mountain Festival Online, on Friday November 18th 2022 from 7-9 p.m.

The judges for 2021 are Marni Jackson (Chair) Natalie Berry and Matt Fry. They have selected the following 6 books for this year's shortlist:

Kieran Cunningham

CLIMBING THE WALLS
LEARNING TO COPE WHEN YOUR WORLD CRUMBLES

Simon & Schuster

A highly engaging, often humorous account of a dedicated climber who is forced to spend the pandemic in lockdown, in Italy, mostly NOT climbing—and the consequences for his mental health.  A reminder of why mountains matter.

Anna Fleming

TIME ON ROCK
A CLIMBER'S ROUTE INTO THE MOUNTAINS

Canongate Publishing

A gorgeously written, elegant and sensual account of the intimate relationship between climber and rock, whether it's the gritstone of the Peak District or the granite of the Cairngorms.  A peripatetic meditation on how "we shape the rock and the rock shapes us".

Brian Hall

HIGH RISK
CLIMBING TO EXTINCTION

Sandstone Press

Brian Hall grew up with the radical climbers who would come to define a wild and glorious chapter of Himalayan mountaineering in the late nineteen seventies and eighties. He partied with them, climbed with them, and grieved many of the eleven unforgettable climbers portrayed in his book.  High Risk takes the reader right to the heart and soul of the golden age of UK climbing.

Robert Charles Lee

THROUGH DANGEROUS DOORS
A LIFE AT RISK

WiDO Publishing

Robert Charles Lee is a professional risk scientist who likes to test his own limits, in life, love and in the mountains, climbing rock and ice.  He doesn't play safe with his writing either, offering readers his unfiltered, sometimes jaw-dropping account of what it means to take risks, and survive.

Helen Mort

A LINE ABOVE THE SKY
A STORY OF MOUNTAINS AND MOTHERHOOD

Ebury Press

One of Britain's best young poets draws a line between the risks and terrors of motherhood and an untethered life in the mountains. Shadowing the life of Alison Hargreaves, the pioneering UK climber who did not give up alpinism when she became a mother, Helen Mort brilliantly explores the visceral education that is part of climbing mountains, and giving birth.

Paul Pritchard

THE MOUNTAIN PATH
A CLIMBER'S JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE & DEATH

Vertebrate Publishing

The author of Deep Play has gone even deeper in this investigation into the spiritual rewards of a life in the mountains.  After Paul was almost killed by a falling rock while climbing a sea stack in Tasmania, he had to push through new physical limitations to philosophical insights that changed his life.  A beautifully written, devastatingly honest account of choosing to live.

*All comments on the books are courtesy of Marni Jackson, 2022 Chair of Judges.

Kendal Mountain Festival —the social event of the year for outdoor people takes place across the town from 18th-21st November.

- Book tickets and passes on the KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL SITE

The Boardman Tasker award ceremony will take place on 18 November 7-9 p.m. and will include readings from the six shortlisted authors. They will be in conversation with presenter and legendary mountaineer Stephen Venables. 


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