Touching the Void

Touching the Void
by Joe Simpson

4 of 5

A well written, heroic tale of survival in the worst conditions imaginable, Touching the Void put my stomach in knots and made my bones cold. I'd put this story in the same category as Into Thin Air and South. The story: Joe and Simon climb a terrible mountain in Peru. They get careless, Joe breaks his ankle and leg, Simon tries to lower Joe, Joe slips over a cliff, Simon cuts the rope, Joe falls into a crevasse and has to crawl miles and miles back to camp. Ouch. I typically don't like stories about the indominable nature of the human spirit, but this one really got me. Even though I read it in the middle of summer, I'd find that my hands and feet were freezing while I read the accounts of climbing rhime flutes and sleeping in snow caves. My recommendation: Read this book next to a nice warm fire.