OK I will be going on hols soon and want to spend some time reading non fiction books involving cycling mountaineering rock climbing etc

what have you read lately that fits the bill?

Thanks all!

Tim Krabbe – The Rider
J Simpson – Touching the Void
Mike Stroud – Survival of the Fittest
C McDougall – Born to Run
Tyler Hamilton – The Secret Race

A. Cherry-Garrard – The Worst Journey in the World

Thanks Guys
Some I have read but others look good!

ghost trails or be brave be strong by jill homer , it really shows she is a writer professionally as oppose to a rider whos written(which can work as well sometimes) her books are both engaging and emotive.

And for a light hearted look at the divide i thought john metcalfes dividing the great was very good.

as a dont bother – mike cawthorns hell of a journey – starts off good and decends into a list of i did i went like youd expect from one of my non sensical ramblings from a ride.

actually looking back at my order history on amazon there may be a theme . The cordilira was a most excellent collection of memories from folk on the divide.

Thanks Trail rat!

Jupiter’s travels. Ted Simon. Brilliant book.

Jupiter’s travels. Ted Simon. Brilliant book.

Ooh yes I have a copy of that at home read it years ago got to be worth another go!

Disappointed not to find…

‘The Mountains of My Life’ by W Bonatti
‘Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest’ by W Davis
‘A short walk in the hindu kush’ by eric newby
‘Seven Years in Tibet’ by H. Harrer

Not a recommendation, but one to avoid is the one I just finished ‘Natural Born Heroes: The Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance’ by C McDougall (author of Born to Run), it is utter incoherent shite.

French Revolutions – Tim Moore
Janapar – Tom Allen
Two Wheels On My Wagon – Paul Howard
We Die Alone – David Howarth
Darkness Descending – Ken Jones

Great stuff I knew this was the place to ask
Amazon second hand book here we come!

Oh and I like reviews like this! honest and to the point! 🙂

it is utter incoherent shite.

‘Thirty Days in the Samarkand Desert with the Duchess of Kent’ by A. E. J. Eliott, O.B.E.

Any of HW Tilman’s mountain or sailing books, WH Murray’s books and his auto-biog, Tom Patey’s One Mans Mountains, Jim Perrin’s Menlove etc.

Not recent, but all superb reads:
Andy Kirkpatrick – Psycho Vertical and Cold Wars
Andy Cave – Learning to Breath
Nick Bullock – Echoes

Yeah, that Kirkpatrick is good. Also, The White Spider, by Heinrich Harrer. Most of Ranulph Fiennes’ books are decent.

River dog – Mark Shand (adventure travel with a stray dog in India)
Blood River – Tim Butcher. amazing story of travelling around the congo.
Last Man Off – Matt Lewis. Stunning stunning story of being shipwrecked in southern ocean on a fishing vessel. will blow your mind. review here.

also have a really good cycle touring book but can’t remember it now.

Dont read about others people’s adventure ….. make your own !!

I think you and others would really rather enjoy this

A true classic of the genre:

“A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson is very funny, not hugely adventurous though 🙂

Oh and the best of them all in a hilarious, bimbling kind of way –

‘Three Men in a Boat’ by Jerome K Jerome,

The follow up is not as good, but does involve bikes and is ‘Three Men on the Bummel’.

I really like Robert Macfarlane’s writing – read The Wild Places a little while back and really enjoyed it – now part way through Mountains of the Mind which is equally good.

As recommended above, Blood River is excellent.

I also really like In Search of Captain Zero by Allan Weisbecker – a good yarn even if it’s (possibly) not all true!

Giant Steps by Karl Bushby. Absolutely fantastic.

Voyageur by Robert Twigger

The last grain race by Eric Newby

The White spider by Heinrich Harrer

Crazy river by Rchard Grant

in no particular order

Forgot to mention The Ascent of Rum Doodle, WE Bowman, will have you in stitches….

Coronation Everest by Jan Morris.

Born to run is complete and utter cat droppings.
How the heck this double-talking-back-tracking-self-contradicting tosh
ever got published is beyond me.

PS

It’s not any good

+1 for the Andy Kirkpatrick books, he has a very disarming style in what is often a very macho “extreme” genre of literature. You get a palpable sense of fear from his descriptions and come away wondering how he’s not an ex-mountaineer yet. There’s also a great book by the first guys to go round the world under their own steam – rowed the Pacific, cycled across Asia and roller bladed across the states allow a shoe string no sponsored budget. Great book but can’t remember the name for the life of me, I could be Rowing to Hawai but I might be getting confused. Not really adventure, but outdoorsy, I recently re-read Bill Bryson ‘a walk in the woods’ about hiking the Appalachian trail – very laconic style and highly amusing

Into the Wild Jon Krakauer

@verses – likewise

Though I suppose it’s got crap all to do with bikes, climbing etc and non-fiction is questionable 😀

I really like Robert Macfarlane’s writing – read The Wild Places a little while back and really enjoyed it – now part way through Mountains of the Mind which is equally good.

Mountains Of The Mind is the only one of his books I haven’t read, I must get around to tracking down a hardcover copy.
I bought his Landmarks book as a paperback, started to read it, enjoyed the first chapter so much I found and bought a hardcover, gave the paperback to a friend, then got all of his other books as hardcover copies, I just need to get Mountains…
Excellent books, I love his writing.

Into the wild – he said non fiction didnt he 😉

And now, some more sensible suggestions from me (Annoyed no one got my earlier one! 🙂 )

Some are on the borders of travel and adventure, but all worth a look, IMHO

The Road to Oxiana – Robert Byron
Songlines – Bruce Chatwin
The Kon-Tiki Expedition – Thor Heyerdahl
Outposts – Simon Winchester

And….a combination of history, adventure and some real WTF moments;
The Fatal Shore – Robert Hughes

(Annoyed no one got my earlier one! )

Maybe we did get it and are just ignoring you! 😉
Thanks for the suggestions though, some great titles there hadn’t heard of the Fatal Shore, looks intriguing!

Into the wild – he said non fiction didnt he

Great read! enjoyed that one too

Willard Price – brilliant

Tom Patey – Blimey starting to relive my youth. I avoided the old climbing ones – bad memories of being slammed for reviewing Bonnington in an Eng Lit exercise at school. 😉

my point was that the krackaur book has been torn to pieces by comparison with mccandless’ journal.. now i get the film of the book being dramatised but krackaur presented his info as fact.

This is my dad’s book: driving dark africa Hopefully it conveys that you don’t need to be an adventurer to have an adventure.

still my turn to book after many years:

nanga parbat pilgrimage, hermann buhl

not so much for the himalayan stuff but for the cycling to some of the hardest routes in the alps, soloing them and then just getting back to work