Customer Reviews

Touching The Void

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A bad fall destroys Joe Simpson's knee near the top of a very difficult mountain in the Huayhuash range of central Peru. The story that follows describes an incredible will to survive against ever increasing odds. The total intensity of the situation is reflected by a writing style that I found compelling. The book made me feel like I was sharing his ordeal, and I stayed up most of a night to finish it.Dancing on the Edge of an Endangered Planet

Recently, I have been into reading books about extreme mountain climbing. This book was excellent as it recounted a unbelievable story of survival. The book talks about two climbers in the mountains but one ends up breaking a leg. The two work together to get down the hill as quickly as possible, but in the end the healthier partner must cut the rope to save himself. The other partner falls but does not die. He begins to travel back to base camp with a broken leg. He somehow crawls to his camp and is still alive in the end. This does not happen on huge mountains. The book is written from both mindsets or partners in this adventure. One is eaten up with guilt and the other is doing everything possible to live. These books are interesting to me because of my desire to climb Pike's Peak in Colorado. They are inspirational as well as interesting.

I read this book shortly after it was published because as a climber myself I knew about this event before Joe Simpson even started writing it. Hope this review will be useful to those who haven't read it yet although it was published many years ago.

The story is very compelling because it shows:
- A moral controversy that created lots of discussions within the climbing community, either in favor or against Simon cutting the rope (with Joe himself being in favor. And I as a climber am also convinced that Simon made the right decision).
- The successful climb in itself and the struggle to get out of the mountain was already worth writing about it.
- Joe's decision making and determination are nothing short of admirable, and a great lesson for all to learn in life.
- Joe's journey psycological and physical went beyond what most of us would've considered humanly possible.

This book is a must to all kinds of people.

book took so long in getting here that i ended up ordering another from different seller and I still got that one earlier, this book took over a month to get here and all other books i have ever ordered from Amazon arrived within one week. book was in excellent shape but if your in a hurry look else where. no hurry? fine.