Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 07, 2023 Kay rated it liked it

Shelves: exploration-adventure, harrowing-tales, mountains-and-men, nonfiction

I wanted to read this before seeing the movie, but once I had finished it, I felt I'd experienced enough vicarious suffering for the time being. Not entirely sure why I'm drawn to these harrowing accounts of mountain climbers (or explorers, for that matter), but reading these books always makes me marvel at human fortitude, courage...and foolishness.

Simpson's brief story is bogged down by climber tech-speak for the first sixty pages or so, but once tragedy strikes, it's riveting. A recurrent the ...more

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Feb 18, 2017 Andy Plonka rated it liked it

Not as good as others I have read about mountaineering, but the perspectives of the two climbers who got separated and their disparate views of what was happening was interesting.

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Nov 24, 2010 Ken rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, true-adventure

I read the book soon after seeing the film in 2004. It touched off a longstanding love of true-adventure books. This story is a classic of the genre, and a must-read for anyone who loves hiking or the outdoors. The film is no slouch, either.

The book is a nice contrast to many of the other historic stories I read (and listen about in podcasts), in which thousands are killed in battle in a single day. In “Touching the Void” we understand how important it is to hold on to life, to just keep going, ...more

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