 | The White Spider: The story of the North Face of the Eiger by Heinrich Harrer
Buy new: £5.97 / Used from: £3.55 Superb description of the first successful climb of the North Face of the Eiger in 1936. Possibly the most dramatic description of a climb I have ever read.
|
 | Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
Buy new: £5.84 / Used from: £0.01 Still immensely powerful 21 years after the event. I read this book 10 years ago and it inspired me to walk the Huayhuash Circuit last year
|
 | Deep Play: A Climber's Odyssey from Llanberis to the Big Walls by Paul Pritchard
Buy used from: £12.74 A real connoisseur's climbing book. Written in a breathless, grammar-free style, it really evokes the way Pritchard climbed. Stick with it - some of the routes he pioneered were amazing.
|
 | Regions of the Heart: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves by David Rose
Buy used from: £8.99 I loved this book! If you want to learn about: K2, mountaineering, family life and the media, read this book.
|
 | Hamish's Mountain Walk And Climbing The Corbetts by Hamish M. Brown
Buy used from: £22.89 A great wee book about Scotland, Munros and the Thatcher government. Brown has a passion for the hills and is able to convey his passion with a beautiful prose style. Highly recommended
|
 | Mountaineering in Scotland by W.H. Murray
Buy new: £9.47 / Used from: £7.33 One of the best books about the Scottish mountains by an early pioneer. Written in a wonderfully understated stiff upper lip style, supposedly on toilet paper in a POW camp from memory.
|
 | The Big Walks: Challenging Mountain Walks and Scrambles in the British Isles (Teach Yourself) by Ken Wilson
Buy used from: £11.00 An inspirational book which will get you heading up the A9 at every opportunity. Superb photography, lively prose and some really arduous routes.
|
 | Dougal Haston: The Philosophy of Risk by Jeff Connor
Buy new: £7.08 / Used from: £2.28 Dougal Haston was possibly the best high-altitude climber of his generation. He also had a wild and shambolic private life. This biography does not pull any punches. Great for the armchair climber.
|
 | 100 Best Scottish Mountain Routes by Ralph Storer
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £1.40 I am not doing the Munros - I am doing the Storers! Now completed 42 of these routes. Beware the star grades, Storer's routes are normally pretty tough.
|
 | Into Thin Air: Personal Account of the Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Buy new: £5.36 / Used from: £0.01 A gripping account of summit fever. Hopefully the days of extreme tourism and queues at the Hilary Step are long gone. But I doubt it.
|
 | The Flame of Adventure by Simon Yates
Buy new: £5.02 / Used from: £0.01 Enjoyable account of the grungey heyday of dole-list climbers. If you've ever worked in Broadgate, pause and think about who helped build it. Loved the description of catching hepatitis. Yeurch!
|
 | The Life and Death of St. Kilda by Tom Steel
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £3.97 Not strictly a mountaineering book, but still a great insight into the brutality of living on the edge of the world
|
 | My Vertical World: Climbing the 8000-Metre Peaks by Jerzy Kukuczka
Buy used from: £115.84 Jerzy Kukuczka was a legendary climber, possibly the best ever. His descriptions of new routes in the Himalaya is simply stupendous. Highly recommended
|
 | Against the Wall by Simon Yates
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £0.13 Classic armchair mountaineering. If you've been to Patagonia you will know that you will never be able to set foot on these mountains.
|
 | Annapurna by Maurice Herzog
Buy new: £10.34 / Used from: £4.68 A thoroughly gripping account of the first ever ascent of an 8000m mountain. Highly controversial in its day, written in a breathless fashion, totally inspiring.
|
 | The Hard Years: His Autobiography by Joe Brown
Buy new: £5.79 / Used from: £1.80 The original hardman of mountaineering.
|
 | Cold Climbs: Great Snow and Ice Climbs of the British Isles (Teach Yourself) by Ken Wilson
Buy new: £17.60 / Used from: £14.24 The perfect coffee table book. I wonder if we will ever see conditions like those again.
|
 | Psychovertical by Andy Kirkpatrick
Buy used from: £16.79 Worthy winner of the Boardman Tasker award (Nov 2008), this book will become a classic. The author overcame many hurdles (undiagnosed dyslexia, family trauma etc) to write this book. Recommended
|
 | Learning to Breathe by Andy Cave
Buy new: £6.96 / Used from: £3.67 Not my favourite on the list but a memorable story nevertheless. I almost prefered the mining days to the climbing days.
|
|
Listmania!
