I just read "Calculated Risk" by Dougal Haston. He finished it the week before he died. It's good read. Had he lived I think he would gone on to a very good writer.

Eiger Dreams by John Crachouer awesome book of short stories. All of which are true and interesting. They all involve mountaineering but are not nececarily about it, they tend to be about the characters that climb.

p.s. not sure if that is how you spell Crachouer?

I just read Lost Horizon by James Hilton. It's only marginally climbing-related, but I think anyone with an interest in mountains could appreciate it.

Hands down . . . Conquistadors of the Useless - by Lionel Terray. This guy was the real deal. Learn all about him, Gaston, Maurice, Lachenal, and other Chamonix guides. Follow a remarkable climbing career path leading up to the world's first 8,000 m summit. The stories in this book are something else . . . try climbing during WW II with a rifle.


Close seconds:
No Picnic on Mt. Kenya - Felice Benuzzi
Gorilla Monsoon - John Long

I'm reading Fall of the Phantom Lord, which is about Dan Osman. It is worth a read.

Also, I really liked The beckoning silence, by Joe Simpson (ala touching the void).

I need to get into reading more historical climbing texts, so I'm writing down titles from this thread.

Evan

A pretty fun book is Eiger Dreams, By John Krakaur. It is about ten short stories of all kind of clibing succeses and failures as well as a couple funny tails.

Favorites on the 20 feet or so of shelf space devoted to mountaineering books in our house:

Side-splitting laughter: Tom Patey's "One Man's Mountains," a collection of stories and his (in)famous satirical songs directed at fellow prominent climbers of his day. Tom was the first Mixed Master. Not particularly graceful, he was famous for being able to get up any sort of cold terrain: snow, ice, slush, rock or any combination thereof. His was the comment, "Ice is for pouring whisky over." How can you have that much fun with your clothes on? "Good friends and good climbing go together. One is essential to the enjoyment of the other."

Eloquent, deep, exquisite writing, some of the best in any genre: W.H. Murray's "Mountaineering in Scotland" and "Undiscovered Scotland". He wrote "Mountaineering" twice, once on toilet paper, while imprisoned during World War II. This is a guy whose idea of fun was a moonlit first ascent in a blizzard with hemp ropes, wooden-handled axes and unanchored belays. He makes it clear that some of the best times in climbing are the ones where you get your butt kicked and you're forced to respect and savor the beautiful place you're in.

Don't miss Shipton's "The Ascent of Nanda Devi." 1930s, wool clothing, no oxygen. He and Tilman summited, and "I believe we so far forgot ourselves as to shake hands on it."

What's so great about "Conquistadors of the Useless" is how understated it is. He's so humble about these absolute epic and historical climbs. It reads like for him it's just another day at the office.

Allen, excellent observation about Conquistadors. Most of the book seems to be written as if he were on the way to the store to purchase a gallon of milk. Just another day. Meanwhile they're suffering through some of the most brutal unplanned bivies imaginable, on some first ascent.
It's an annual read.

Holidays in Hell, P.J. O'Rork

Any post by the Hankster.

-'The Rock Warriors Way' by Arno Ilgner, highly recommended
-'Starlight and Storm' by Gaston Rebuffat, classic
-'The Mountains of My Life' by Walter Bonatti, great for soloists
-'Annapurna' by Maurice Herzog, uber classic mountaineering
-'Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage' by Hermann Buhl, solo/mountaineering
-'Kiss or Kill' by Mark Twight, hardcore alpinism, motivator!
-'The Power of Silence' and 'The Art of Dreaming' by Carlos Castaneda
-'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand, philosophy, mirrors current politics
-'The Doors of Perception and Heaven&Hell' by Aldous Huxley
-'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding
-'The Lore of Running' by Timothy Noakes, (!) full of endurance science

I don't know if it's still in print or available, but Woodrow Wilson Sayer's "Four Against Everest" is an excellent read. Sometime before the 1963 American Everest Expedition, a Tufts University professor (Sayer) joined up with 3 friends and got permission to attempt a minor Nepalese peak. They ditched their sirdar and sherpas, crossed the border into Tibet, started up the north side of Everest and damn near made it before a long, long fall on steep snow put an end to their attempt.

Alice in Wonderland