The Beckoning Silence
  • Published: 3 February 2003
  • ISBN: 9780099422433
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $45.00
Categories:

The Beckoning Silence

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'Eloquent, spine-chilling stuff' Sunday Times

Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but marred by death. He has endured the painful attrition of climbing friends in accidents, calling into question the perilously exhilarating activity to which he has devoted his life. Probability is inexorably closing in. The tragic loss of a close friend forces a momentous decision upon him. It is time to turn his back on the mountains that he has loved. Never more alive than when most at risk, he has come to see a last climb on the hooded, mile-high North Face of the Eiger as the cathartic finale.

In a narrative which takes the reader through extreme experiences, from an avalanche in Bolivia, ice-climbing in the Alps and Colorado and paragliding in Spain - before his final confrontation with the Eiger - Simpson reveals the inner truth of climbing, exploring both the power of the mind and the frailties of the body. The subject of his new book is the siren song of fear and his struggle to come to terms with it.
  • Published: 3 February 2003
  • ISBN: 9780099422433
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $45.00
Categories:

About the author

Joe Simpson

Joe Simpson is the author of several best-selling books, of which the first, Touching the Void, won both the NCR award and the Boardman Tasker Award. His later books are This Game of Ghosts - the sequel to Touching the Void - Storms of Silence, Dark Shadows Falling, The Beckoning Silence and one previous novel, The Water People.

portrait photo of Joe Simpson

Also by Joe Simpson

Touching The Void
The Sound of Gravity
Storms of Silence
Dark Shadows Falling
This Game Of Ghosts
See all

Praise for The Beckoning Silence

Grippingly told...there is no question Simpson is a brilliant adventure writer. There are passages that had my heart racing

Observer

No one conjures the thrill of altitude better than Simpson...A hugely enjoyable book...As far as mountaineering literature goes this is about as good as it gets

Sara Wheeler, Spectator

An engrossing read. Nobody evokes the physical and psychological realities of climbing better...a powerfully written book...as vivid as anything Simpson has yet produced

Sunday Telegraph

Heart-stopping stuff...This is not a book for the fainthearted and perhaps should come with a government health warning...a book that will have your fingers clutching imaginary rocks and palms sweating over every page

Scotsman

Eloquent, spine-chilling stuff

SUNDAY TIMES