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Touching the Void cover art

Touching the Void

By: Joe Simpson
Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Daniel Weyman
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Publisher's Summary

Joe Simpson, with just his partner, Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000-foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck.

A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured, crawling through the snowstorm in a delirium.

Far from causing Joe's death, Simon had paradoxically saved his friend's life. What happened, and how they dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted when Simon was forced into the appalling decision to cut the rope, makes not only an epic of survival but a compelling testament of friendship.

©1988 Joe Simpson (P)2012 Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about Touching the Void

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    4 out of 5 stars

A really slow start

I actually gave up on this book for a while. It seemed to go now where. Though, without giving anything away, there is a critically point where that all changes. From then on I was almost hanging on every word.

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6 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Harrowing and Amazing

An amazing story! The fight for survival and reflection on the psychological strain both men were under throughout their ordeal is equally gripping and heart rending.
My only problem was for someone who doesn't know what different pieces of climbing kit are for, or what different rock/ice formations look like and feature, certain aspects were hard to imagine.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
  • tom
  • 23-08-2017

true stories are often the best stories

i would listen to it for no reason other than it's true, but there definitely are more reasons than that. a captivating story of survival.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Powerful story; the experience, the writing....

This is a mountaineering story about two friends who want to be the first to summit the West Face of the remote 21,000-foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. It's so much more than that; it's a metaphor for life, and especially for business leaders. It's about being adaptive, intuition - the voices in our heads, friendship, decision making, preparation, planning, action taking, care-taking for yourself and for others, impacts (of all of the above), exploration and the importance of experimentation, importance of quality. Most of all it's a story about holistic agility; from the moment you have the idea to the very moment it is all done, being present from the moment you have the idea, through every increment and continuously adapting till the end. As a keen biography reader this is definitely in my top 3.

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1 person found this helpful

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Brilliant

Made me laugh, made my cry, made me gasp, made my trip quicker. Loved it.

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1 person found this helpful

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Harrowing

A small taste of what it might be like to slowly die, alone and cold on the side a mountain

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1 person found this helpful

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unputdownable

absolutely amazing story. gives so many struggles a dose of perspective. just so vivid and raw.

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1 person found this helpful

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Excellent

An incredible recounting.
Astounding that one can endure such events, that the will to survive can triumph against such odds.

Had me hooked at every moment and offered powerful life lessons throughout.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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astounding!

This book takes awhile to get into if your not normally an 'outdoorsy' kind of person, but then the intensity comes.
I don't want to spoil it, the story had my family looking at each other open mouthed and in silence for the long car trip we had this playing. No one wanted to speak to interrupt the fact we were all conpletely reliving this story in our minds eye.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Best yet

I had seen the documentary years ago but never brought myself to read the book. This audiobook is by far the most gripping story I have listened to so far

I struggled to stop listening

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