Talking About Books
- September 2008
- Hi Steph Simple Living Dogs
hi steph,
i trust this mail finds you in good spirits.i enjoyed your site very much,and article in vertical magazine.
i hope to attend your lecture in kendal, england in november. will you be selling your book there,and if so would you sign it for me?
i live in scotland and enjoy climbs here and alps.
all best wishes
paul
Hi Steph,
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your book. I read a lot and have to say it was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in years. Thanks!!. I started climbing in the late 70’s at the gunks and remember when every climb was an epic. We had no pro except real “nuts” and a few hexes. It’s amazing how things have changed. Well just wanted to send this quick note and say hello to you. I admire you for the great climbing you have done.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Robert
Steph,
As I am sure you have heard many times, I loved your book. I picked it up second hand not really knowing what to expect. After amassing a growingly ridiculous collection of Mountaineering/Climbing books, it was refreshing to find a climber who to the core believes in the values of how they climb and doing it for the passion and not personal aggrandizement. I truly appreciated all your humor and passion that showed through on each endeavor. Even more than then recalling the climbs, I was more drawn to the contemplative sections and the header quotes starting each giving them a poignant personal feeling. I just wanted to thank you for inspiring climbers such as myself to follow dreams of personal passion that other people may never understand. After seeing the write up in Alpinist, I can’t wait to see your Free Solo of the Diamond in The Sharp End premier up in Boulder this September!
Best Wishes,Dan Cillo
Steph – My girlfriend and I just finished reading your book and thoroughly enjoyed it. After our first trip to Squamish this past July, Jenny has been moonlighting about becoming a dirtbag climber and then your book inspired her even more. “Unfortunately” she is starting med school in the fall and for the time being we’re just going to be part timers on various west coast crags. She’s a little stressed about starting school again but with a good balance of climbing and studying she’ll be just fine. To help her with this balance she would absolutely love it if she could have a poster of you in her room. Is this something you can do? If not, could you direct me to somewhere where I can get a poster? I’ll send you full payment for cost and postage.
Also, thank you for writing such an honest book. Guide and technique books can only get one so far. Your solid prose will hopefully spark a movement of modern mountaineering literature. Do you have recommendations of fiction or non-fiction books on climbing/mountaineering? Perhaps something you found either inspirational or pertinent to your masters research?
I hope all is well wherever you are climbing right now. Please get back to me whenever you get a chance. – Clark
Hey Steph! I’m a climber/freelance writer from Durango, Colorado. Your book High Infatuation totally showed me that my dirtbag climbing life was simply a product of the climbing bug and I panicked less about my lack of a real job. 🙂
But I was wondering…are you able to make any prints of your photos? Or do you know of any kick-ass women climbing photos. I’m looking to put some up on my wall in my room–want some some ice climbing and desert climbing for some inspiration. I had to move to Oklahoma City because of a bad break up with my boyfriend/climbing partner and my lack of a career future if I kept dirtbagging. I’m developing my writing career (got an article in the works for climbing magazine currently–wahoo!) but then I might move back to Moab or Durango….or maybe Alaska…or wherever good climbing can be had. I need some photos to keep me sane and keep me working out at the climbing gym. 😛
Let me know if you have any ideas.
thanks for writing and climbing and being who you are–you rock.
-Michelle Duregger
p.s. have you read Explorers of the Infinite? SUPER GOOD…check it if you haven’t already!
Dear Paul, Robert, Dan, Clark and Michelle,
Thanks!! It’s nice to know people read High Infatuation, and like it! 🙂
Of course books are my favorite things in the universe. Well, along with music and dogs and climbing…..well, you know 🙂
I did my master’s thesis about mountaineering literature, at CSU. That topic didn’t really exist there when I was doing my degree, so they asked me to do it as a two part project. The first part would be an article-length thesis (mine was called “The Reality of Experience in Mountaineering Literature”), and the second part would be a bibliography of mountaineering literature that I felt was central to my project and the genre, which would include summaries of the books. (Then my review committee would have a list and synopses of the books I was talking about in the paper, so they were pretty smart.) It was a great project, and I felt lucky to be allowed to do it.
In my opinion, some of the best books I read and used were “Purgatorio” by Dante Alighieri (I see it as one of the first mountaineering books written, in 1307), “The Ascent of F6” by W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood (hilarious), “No Picnic on Mount Kenya” by Felice Benuzzi (like everything Italian, this book is lovely, endearing, inspiring, and enormously moving), “Summits and Secrets” by Kurt Diemberger (mystical and intelligent), and of course “Moments of Doubt” by David Roberts. Hands down the best mountaineering book EVER WRITTEN has to be “Wind, Sand and Stars” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, even though it’s about flying planes in the 1930s.
Also, I just read two books that I really really really liked. A lot. One is called “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. It’s one of those books that is going to be a best seller and make a ton of money, and it should. It’s philosophical and highly tear jerking, and is “written” by a dog 🙂
The other is “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is one of my favorite authors, by far. (His book “Wild Sheep Chase” is unbelievable.) When I read “What I Talk About”, with every sentence I was thinking “he is EXACTLY like me! Exactly!” It was kind of eerie, actually. But since he’s 50, he is a lot smarter than me, so I got a lot out of it.
If I were making a mountaineering lit bibliography now, I’d put those books in too! Somehow, I feel like we are all talking about the same things…..
xx Steph
