Favorite Climbing Books

Camp 4- Steve Roper 

Conquistadors of the Useless - Lionel Terray 

Life lived Wild -Rick Ridgeway 

Annapurna - Maurice Herzog

Surprised in 3 pages of responses no one's mentioned Steph Davis' High Infatuation. It's definitely my favorite climbing book I've read. A great combination of stoke and spray with insightful reflections.

Stephs book is good. Part of it is in Valley  of Giants  by Lauren Delaunay Miller. 

Sharon Yunwrote:

Surprised in 3 pages of responses no one's mentioned Steph Davis' High Infatuation. It's definitely my favorite climbing book I've read. A great combination of stoke and spray with insightful reflections.

Oh yeah it's awesome, forgot to include in mine

I like "Gabe's Fall and Other Climbing Stories" by Peter Lars Sandberg. It was recommended in an old Wild Things catalog (80's) so I ordered it through a bookstore back when you would do such things. Also not mentioned yet, but I liked A Night on the Ground, a Day in the Open and Andy Kirkpatrick's books as well. 

Sharon Yunwrote:

Surprised in 3 pages of responses no one's mentioned Steph Davis' High Infatuation. It's definitely my favorite climbing book I've read. A great combination of stoke and spray with insightful reflections.

I thought the best parts of this book were her poetic descriptions of time spent in Patagonia. Here she shined. Elsewhere, especially in Yosemite, it got bogged down in boring details and lost the soul of the thing.

Steph’s 2nd book is the better of the 2- Learning to Fly. Not rock climbing but hey is alpinism? 

I finished "High Infatuation" almost entirely in one sitting, highly recommended for those who haven't read it.

"More" by Majka Burhardt also went down really quick, the format of the journal / diary entries made it feel extremely personal.

"A Place In Which To Search: Summers in the Wind Rivers" by Joe Kelsey. Keep Caltopo or a set of maps available, you'll want them for context.

Some stuff from across the pond:  Tom Patey, One Man's Mountains; W.H. Murray, Mountaineering in Scotland; W.H. Murray, Undiscovered Scotland; Brown and Mitchell, Mountain Days and Bothy Nights; and I'll second this suggestion: Perrin, The Villain: The Life of Don Whillans (a great subject and a good writer).

j mowrote:

Steph’s 2nd book is the better of the 2- Learning to Fly. Not rock climbing but hey is alpinism? 

I've read her first book and I enjoyed it. I agree with the others that some of her Patagonian adventures were some of the best sections of the book. Especially the section where she jumars another parties lines at her partners behest.

West Vanderstappenwrote:

Camp 4- Steve Roper 

Conquistadors of the Useless - Lionel Terray 

Life lived Wild -Rick Ridgeway 

Annapurna - Maurice Herzog

I don't know if it's just my reading ability, but I found Annapurna really hard to get into. I've tried on three separate occasions to get through that book and I've never been drawn in enough to make it. 

Roper's camp 4 

Davis's high enfatuation 

Colton Meyerswrote:

I don't know if it's just my reading ability, but I found Annapurna really hard to get into. I've tried on three separate occasions to get through that book and I've never been drawn in enough to make it. 

Mhh I really enjoyed it, being a first hand written account by Maurice made it really personal. I especially loved the chapter of the summit and descent, a lot of introspection of mortality and the likes, at least how I remember it lol

I have about 25 of the books mentioned in this thread for sale on my website, I made a list here if anyone wants to add to their libraries. 

As I've been spending a lot of time buying, selling and researching climbing books in the past year, I've been wondering:

Do you all think we are going to see the death of the climbing book? Or maybe just the death of the BAD climbing book? In the 70s and 80s, one of the main ways you sprayed about your climb or expedition was to publish a book. 

There is a funny bit in Feeding the Rat about this, while the party is retreating after Chris Bonington has broken two ribs and Doug Scott has broken both his ankles high on the mountain. Bonington is coughing his lungs out in a sleeping bag with broken ribs. He leans over to Mo Antoine and  says "We're going to make a fortune off this." Antoine asks: "How come?" and Bonington goes: "The book!" The narrator continues: It was at that moment that Mo finally understood that he was not then and had never been a professional mountaineer.

These days it seems to me that the most cutting-edge climbers are mostly staying off the grid, with nothing more in ways of promoting their climbs than Instagram, maybe an AAJ article, and occasionally small films for Reel Rock or YouTube. Even the more recently-published books recommended in this thread are discussing climbs and climbers of yore. 

Did Instagram kill the climbing book?

Daniel, your post reminds me of the old saying "Anyone can write a book". There's always bad books, and it's partly why I made this thread!

Maybe newer climbers have moved off of print media, but maybe they just haven't had enough experiences to sit down and write something out. Though I did just do some googling and I'm having a harder time finding recent media from younger climbers. 

Space Below My Feet hasn't been mentioned yet. It takes place in the 1940s. A true "compulsive love for the mountains" story. On most descents, I'm reminded of a short section about barefoot talus running. 

Written by Gwen Moffat. 

Stone Crusade....by John Sherman

Cold Feet by Dave Pagel and Stone Palaces by Geoff Childs.