Touching the Void - Joe Simpson

Just about all travel literature tries to tap into the same vicarious vein - taking the reader somewhere, whisking them away and giving them a sense of experiencing somewhere quite wonderful (or awful!) without their having to shift from their armchair or train seat. Those books which deal with taking on nature's extremities - be it long-distance walking, remote exploration or high-altitude mountaineering - lend themselves to this current all the more. After all, who wants to actually struggle with sub-zero temperatures and frostbitten toes when they can let someone else take the strain? Why spend an hour melting snow for drinking water when you can potter into the ...  Read the complete review

Touching the Void is the heart-wrenching, deeply honest and beautifully written account of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' disastrous attempt at climbing a previously unclimbed route to the 6344m summit of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes - the West face. For those of you not in the climbing fraternity (me included) 6344m is extremely high - the air is extremely thin, you have no choice but to climb vast ice cliffs and cross snowfields that are criss-crossed with ravines, all the while hoping that the weather will not close in. If it does, you are almost certainly dead. As something of a wannabe adventurer, and having randomly seen the film on TV I bought ...  Read the complete review

I came into possession of a copy of “Touching the Void” in much the same way I found the music of Matchbox Twenty for the first time. I saw a copy of the book on sale, vaguely recalled reading positive things about either it of the film that was made from it and figured I’d take a chance. Again, in much the same way as finding Matchbox Twenty, I couldn’t locate the positive comments I thought I’d seen and worried it might not be as good as I was expecting. This is where the comparison ends. Whereas Matchbox Twenty turned me into a fan very quickly, “Touching the Void” doesn’t have enough about it to achieve the same effect. It’s the story of ...  Read the complete review

'Touching The Void' sat on my bookshelf for a few years. Although I am a keen mountaineer, and have enjoyed many climbing books, I just never stirred enough enthusiasm to bother to read it. Climbing books, you see... well I've just got to be in the mood! About a year ago, it was made into a film, and attracted many favourable comments from the film-reviewers. Again, I just didn't fancy going to see it. It was on a recent holiday, I had packed four paperbacks, and this book was amongst them. I read the others, and was then finally faced with reading Simpson's legendary book. My girlfriend had already run out of reading, and sought local ...  Read the complete review

I have just finished reading this book and feel its a good time to write a review about it. I wasn't particularly excited about reading it when it was recommended to me as i have no interest in mountain climbing, but it was something different, so i bought it from Amazon anyway. 'Touching the void' is Joe Simpsons account of a climb he made with his friend Simon, in the Peruvian mountains in 1985. Upon their early descent, Joe gets badly injured and tells of the fight him and his friend make to get back down the mountain, and at a point Simon has to make an instinctive decision which should have seen Joe plunge to his death. Believing his friend is ...  Read the complete review