Joe Simpson

Joe Simpson is the author of several bestselling books, of which the first, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival, won both the NCR Award and the Boardman Tasker Award. His later books include This Game of Ghosts, Storms of Silence, Dark Shadows Falling, The Beckoning Silence and two novels.

From his Q & A with Tim Lewis at the Guardian:

You went back to climbing after your accident, and only stopped in 2009. What’s taken its place?

Nothing. Nothing ever will. I actually surprised myself, I sat up on this peak in Nepal in 2009 and I could see however many 8,000-metre peaks: Everest, Lhotse. It was a gorgeous day. I knew I had a three-and-a-half-day descent and it was going to be murderous on my knee. So I thought: “It doesn’t get much better than this. This is the time to stop.” And I just went to Kathmandu and sold all my gear, and I never climbed again. But it was like grief in a way, and it’s because it’s something you spent your entire life doing. It’s what you live for and then suddenly...[read on]

Touching the Void is among Emma Barrett and Paul Martin's ten favorite books about and by people in extremes and Andy Cave's top ten books on Alpinism.

--Marshal Zeringue