What are the best books for mountain climbing? Here are those that I've read:

Freedom of the hills - Very complete
No shortcuts to the top - Great narrative; no technique
Into thin air
Eiger Dreams- Just started it

The mountaineering books topic has been popular on previous forums:

good-climbing-literature-t61456.html

good-books-t2586.html

One or two here:

http://www.summitpost.org/mountaineerin ... s/p-207429

I just finished reading Bonatti's " The Mountains of my Life". What a great read.

TimB wrote:I just finished reading Bonatti's " The Mountains of my Life". What a great read.

Get The Great Days, his first book. It is ten times better by far!

A5RP wrote:

TimB wrote:I just finished reading Bonatti's " The Mountains of my Life". What a great read.

Get The Great Days, his first book. It is ten times better by far!

No kidding? Sweet! I will pick up a copy ASAP.

Some favorites:

Addicted to Danger
The Ledge
In the Zone (the Coombs story about Mt Foraker is probably the best mountaineering story I have read, though it doesn't seem that well known)
Minus 148

I'm also a big fan of Richard Sale/John Cleare's books (all of them), but they are more almanac/documentary style than novel style. Same with Eiger; Wall of Death, another favorite.

Into Thin Air and Eiger Dreams used to be some of my favorites, but I've been told by a few people in Krakauer's books that he doesn't always get things right, so I don't know if I like them quite as much anymore.

If you can read long books, the Boardman/Tasker Omnibus is pretty good. Or you can read the individual stories as well.

To supplement Freedom of the Hills, I recommend Extreme Alpinism by Mark Twight, The Mountaineering Handbook by Craig Connely, and Alpine Climbing by Mark Houston.

I really enjoyed Steve House's Beyond the Mountain.

I really enjoyed the Burgess Book of Lies. As much as it is climbing, it is humor and adventure. I mean, driving a Ford Transit to India from Sheffield?! Sweet!!! Adrian and Alan Burgess are awesome.
I also really liked This Game of Ghosts, another by Joe Simpson. This one is more of an autobiography.
Annapurna by Herzog is a classic too.
There are many more but I'm not near my bookshelf to check.

Some of my favorites (ones that I bought and read multiple times):

Nanga Parbat Pilgramage by Herman Buhl

Last Blue Mountain by Ralph Barker

K2 The Savage Mountain by Houston and Bates

Climbing In North America by Chris Jones

Nanda Devi by John Roskelley

Annapurna by Maurice Herzog

Seems that all but one focus on Himalayan climbs, but actually, Buhl's book includes a lot of interesting stories of climbs in the Austrian Alps.

Also Dark Summit and Grand Controversy. I din't know that I would enjoy Grand Controversy as much as I did. It gave me a whole new perspective on Teton history.

WOW. If I read the stack of books in the last photo I would think there is not much else in the world aside from Everest.