This Game of Ghosts - Softcover

Simpson, Joe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099380110 ISBN 13: 9780099380115

Publisher: Random House UK, 2007

Synopsis

This Game of Ghosts

About this title

Review:

In his second memoir, climber Joe Simpson reveals a lifetime of flirtation with danger, from risky childhood stunts to an astonishing number of near-death climbing accidents. Simpson revisits his many brushes with death while climbing: a 2,000-foot fall in the Courtes, the collapse of a bivy ledge on the Dru, a 150-foot fall on Nepal's Pachermo, and his nearly fatal climb in the Andes, covered in his Boardman Tasker Award-winner, Touching the Void.

Simpson writes in an effort to understand his own reasons for taking such risks. He describes what it is like to face death, and works through the guilt of being spared so many times when other climbing friends and mentors were not. Simpson also copes with the frustration of having his climbing ambitions cut short by injury and the resultant feelings of uncertainty. Complete with photo documentation of key events in the author's life, This Game of Ghosts is a gripping account of honesty and fortitude that will keep both mountaineers and outdoor enthusiasts in suspense.

From the Back Cover:

When mountain climber Simon Yates cut the rope and sent his friend and climbing partner Joe Simpson plummeting to an ordeal few mountaineers can have contemplated, the outcome was totally unpredictable. That Simpson survived his experience on Peru's Siula Grande is a revelation of the power of the human spirit to overcome fear, pain and deprivation of almost unimaginable intensity. He did not expect to live it all over again - more than once. The first test was to write his award-winning account of the ordeal in Touching the Void. That meant dragging the terrifying experience out of the deeper shadows of his memory. Next, another fall in the Himalaya crippled and almost broke him. He felt forced to test his nerve again, and struggled on crutches to 20,000 feet on Pumori, near Everest. On his descent he heard that a young, first-time climber had been killed by a chance rockfall. What sense could he make now of this game of ghosts that had claimed the lives of so many of his friends over the years he had been climbing, while he had survived so many events that should have meant certain death? In an attempt to find catharsis for his confused emotions he wrote this e xtraordinary memoir, revealing his early ife and his fifteen years of climbing on three continents, before and after the life-changing experience of Siula Grande. His gripping story recounts, with total honesty, experiences that range from hilarious to poignant to nearly unbelievable. Here are the signposts that have directed him since childhood to measure fear and embrace the unknown. He wonders about the luck or the choices along the way that have caused the loss of so many climbing friends: "Ghosts everywhere I look, all Isee are ghosts - or perhaps I am the ghost, a spectre of my past, standing in the rubble of my present, anxiously awaiting the future". This is a compelling work of adventure and introspection that will hold both moutaineers and armchair travelers spellbound.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0099380110
• ISBN 13: 9780099380115
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336