AnyBook4Less.com
Find the Best Price on the Web
Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Developed by Fintix
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |  
 
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money

This Game of Ghosts

Please fill out form in order to compare prices
Title: This Game of Ghosts
by Joe Simpson
ISBN: 0-89886-460-7
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Pub. Date: September, 1995
Format: Paperback
Volumes: 1
List Price(USD): $14.95
Your Country
Currency
Delivery
Include Used Books
Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble
Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (14 reviews)

Customer Reviews

Rating: 4
Summary: Fear is the Key
Comment: From Simpson's introduction to this book we realize that it is perhaps fear, and overcoming fear and the accompanying exhiliration that drives him. Or is it?
Touching the Void was a brilliant book, detailing a horrific climb and fall in the Peruvian Andes. But at the end, you do wish you could know more about this guy. This Game of Ghosts fills in the blanks. Beginning with his upbringing as the youngest of 5 children, we get to come along as he is introduced to climbing, and adopts it more as a lifestyle than a hobby. Simpson comes of age literally and figuratively in this book. His writing is more polished than in his first book, he is older and wiser, and has gone on to experience more peaks, more true friends, more loss. He explores these things in an effort to describe the allure climbing holds for him, while admonishing us not to assume all adrenaline junkies are the same.
Don't worry, this isn't a philosophy book. It's chock full of fantastic adventures and once again we get to accompany him to dangerous places where we feel the cold, the fear, and the companionship of like minds. This is a must read for anyone who liked Touching the Void. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4
Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable read
Comment: Although the story is not as dramatic as his "Touching the Void", the writing style is better and Joe gives us an inside on his life and his climbing. He is honest and and paints a colourful portrait of his life and encouters with danger. His story includes a funny cast of climbers who share the same lifestyle and sport.

His life stories are funny and interesting. However he also deals with the dark side of climbing, the loss of his comrades. Joe is honest and shares with us his recollection of his life after the accident. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Rating: 4
Summary: Good reading
Comment: This is a delightful book. Not that the writer's more well-known TOUCHING THE VOID is badly written; it isn't, and it remians on my short list of the best mountaineering/adventure books I've read. But in THIS GAME OF GHOSTS Simpson stretches out more fully, more autobiographically (is that a wrod?) in an attempt to explain (to himself, to the reader) what it is about climbing that is so attractive, so essential to his existence. While he is honest almost to a fault, Simpson is smart enough to not fall (no pun intended) into the cliches and pseudo-mystical parrot talk that waters down an awful lot of mountaineering lit. For Simpson, there is no short, definitive answer as to why he is drawn to steep, icy mountain walls. On the other hand, the whole book is an answer to this question, which he poses, dismisses, returns to, and obliquely answers over and over.

This is not just a good mountaineering book; it is a bood book, period. At first I thought Simpson was being a bit self-indulgent by detailing his early life. ("Who does this guy think he is?" I asked myself. "This isn't Winston Churchill or even Frank McCourt, but an unknown Brit who thinks we care about his schoolboy years.") But he won me over through his strong sense of humor and good storytelling. And the whole thing is full of good stories. Part of the book's appeal is in the stupidity of Simpson's climbing mistakes, many of which lead to life-threatening accidents. But through all his many incidents, Simpson proves to be as resilient as a rubber ball.

Similar Books:

Title: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival
by Joe Simpson
ISBN: 0060730552
Publisher: Perennial
Pub. Date: January, 2004
List Price(USD): $12.95
Title: The Beckoning Silence
by Joe Simpson
ISBN: 0898869412
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Pub. Date: June, 2003
List Price(USD): $18.95
Title: Dark Shadows Falling
by Joe Simpson
ISBN: 0898865905
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Pub. Date: November, 1999
List Price(USD): $18.95
Title: White Spider: The Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger
by Heinrich Harrer, Hugh Merrick
ISBN: 0874779405
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper)
Pub. Date: October, 1998
List Price(USD): $14.95
Title: Storms of Silence
by Joe Simpson
ISBN: 0898865123
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Pub. Date: February, 1997
List Price(USD): $19.95

Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!

Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments

Powered by Apache