To celebrate International Mountain Day on 11 December, here’s a rundown of five inspiring books about mountains and mountaineering – perfect to add to your to-read pile or to gift to a loved one this Christmas.
1. In the Shadow of the Mountain by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
Released back in 2022, In the Shadow of the Mountain is an autobiography by the first Peruvian woman to climb Everest.
Having suffered abuse as a child and again as an adult, Vasquez-Lavado went on to become a successful businesswoman and mountaineer.
When the time came for her to make her first attempt at the summit of Everest, she defied conventional wisdom. Rather than concentrating solely on her own journey to the highest point in the world, she vowed to take a group of women who themselves had suffered abuse – and, in some cases, been trafficked – with her to Everest Base Camp.
The book documents Vasquez-Lavado’s early life in Peru, how she overcame her experiences of abuse, and the relationship she forms with these incredible women as they ascend more than 5,000 metres to Everest Base Camp. Then, follow the author on her final push to the top.
2. Mountains of the Mind by Robert MacFarlane
Subtitled A History of a Fascination, this was MacFarlane’s first book. Published in 2003, it won the Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.
MacFarlane has gone on to write five more books that mix travel writing with history and psychogeography (most recently Is a River Alive? in 2025). He has also written nature books for children.
In Mountains of the Mind, MacFarlane takes his title from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins and looks at what drives human beings to want to conquer mountains, despite their obvious dangers.
Part climbing memoir, part examination of our primal instincts and desire to explore, it’s a fascinating insight into the minds of explorers and adventurers from George Mallory to the author himself.
3. The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer
The north face of the Eiger is legendary. The tallest north face in the Alps, the near-vertical wall of rock and ice is more than 1,800 metres tall and reaches the mountain’s summit (3,967 metres).
Originally published in 1959, Harrer’s book is an account of his ascent of the Eiger’s north face, the first time the feat had been achieved.
It moves between Harrer’s success and attempts from the previous 25 years or so of the face’s climbing history.
Technically difficult and dangerous – thanks to avalanches and falling rock – the climb’s history is as fascinating as Harrer’s determination to conquer it.
4. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
A journalist and climber, Krakauer had largely retired from mountaineering when he decided to join a 1996 expedition to summit Mount Everest. Into Thin Air is his personal account of the disaster that followed, in which eight climbers were killed.
Krakauer had originally intended to climb only as far as Base Camp, but the lure of the mountain caused him to ask his publisher to postpone the article for a year so that he could train for a full ascent.
The book moves between events during the climb and the subsequent unfolding disaster, in which Krakauer’s expedition leader, Rob Hall, was among those killed.
5. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
It is often said that the descent is the most dangerous part of conquering a mountain, and this has rarely been truer than in the story told by Joe Simpson. The book was published back in 1988 and has since sold over 1 million copies and been translated into 20 languages.
Having reached the 6,344-metre summit of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, Simpson and his climbing partner Simon Yates began the challenging descent.
First, Yates fell through a cornice (an overhanging edge of snow) and tumbled down the face they had just climbed. After a night spent in a snow hole, consuming the last of their food, the following morning, Simpson also fell and broke his leg.
What followed was a fight for survival as Yates helped his friend descend the mountain, only for further disaster to strike.
A harrowing yet inspirational tale of survival against the odds, the book won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature and the 1989 NCR Book Award. A Bafta-award-winning documentary of the same name was made in 2003 and screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
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