The Mountains of My Life

“Bonatti was born in 1930 and was at his peak in the 1950s. He was extreme in who he was and what he did. He was climbing the cutting-edge routes—extremely difficult climbs—as a teenager with no gear. He would be in, like, a potato sack, doing the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses—which is a route that climbers today still idolise. Each chapter centers on a particular climb and tells the story of it. It’s written in the first person, and you get privileged access into his mind. He’s very interesting, a very intelligent man. He became a journalist and photographer afterwards, and travelled the world as an explorer. So his writing is good as well.” Read more...

The best books on Mountaineering

Anna Fleming, Memoirist