The Armchair Mountaineer [Paperback]

David Reuther (Editor), John Thorn (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

Within the pages of The Armchair Mountaineer are the accounts of many of the great triumphs and tragedies of mountaineering

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Few sports have the mystic allure that is so much a part of mountaineering. The rewards for success are great, as are the consequences for failure. So solitary a sport, mountaineering leads to the release of some of our innermost feelings; feelings of uncertainty, competitiveness, and the desire to conquer fear and physical limitation. Within the pages of The Armchair Mountaineer are the accounts of many of the great triumphs and tragedies of mountaineering. The combination of great climbers and renowned authors leads to a volume filled with accounts of ascents from around the world, from a detailed account of the equipment necessary to ascend Yosemite's Lost Arrow to Rick Ridgeway's journal of the attack on K2, to Herzog on Annapurna, Hillary on Everest, and Reinhold Messner on the will to survive. Not surprisingly, some of the greatest authors of fiction have made their mark on the literature of climbing. (6 x 9, 352 pages, illustrations)

Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Menasha Ridge Press; 1st edition (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897320921
• ISBN-13: 978-0897320924
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,205,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful tour thru the great literature of mountaineering, September 16, 1998

By 

Susan R. Matthews (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Armchair Mountaineer (Paperback)

Hey, this is a great book, from start to finish. It contains wonderful excerpts from the literature of mountaineering/alpinism/rock climbing, people who take themselves seriously, people who don't take themselves seriously, moments from the history of mountaineering that form alps of their own (you should pardon the cliche) in the literature.

I would consider this to be an excellent volume for anyone who has just finished =Into Thin Air= or =The Climb= and who would like to find more to read in the genre. Harvesting the citation list alone is going to keep my reading pile fat and happy for months!

Disclaimer: I'm not a mountain-climber, and I don't play one on TV; I'm just an average wage slug who enjoys a good story well told.