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  • Kiss or Kill

  • Confessions of a Serial Climber
  • Written by: Mark Twight
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
  • Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (15 ratings)

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Kiss or Kill

Written by: Mark Twight
Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
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Publisher's Summary

Sit back and join the ride with this collection of edge-of-your-seat climbing stories by Mark Twight, aka Dr. Doom. "Somewhere out there somebody understands these words and knows they matter. They were written in blood, learned by heart." (Mark Twight)

Mark Twight is a BANFF award-winner, an extreme climber, an extreme writer, and an extreme personality. No matter what he's doing, Mark Twight takes a definite, and often controversial , stand. Anyone who knows climbing knows Twight's name, and anyone who knows Twight's name will want to listen to this audiobook. Each story is told in Twight's taut, in-your-face style. Brand-new epilogues bring each piece full circle, providing updated information and fresh, hindsight perspectives.

©2001 Mark Twight (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Kiss or Kill

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  • Sam
  • 2019-02-07

Raw

Refreshing and authentic alpine stories. His unsweetened way of life is reflected in the author's writing style. Sharing with us his state of mind pushing through tough times allows us to better understand the underside of far-reaching expeditions. If Bukowski had been addicted to the mountain...

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1 person found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Painful listening

Listening to Twight’s egotistical storey telling and pronunciation of french (or any other language) is quite painful. If I had a paper copy of this book, I’d use it as toilette paper on my next multi day trip.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great story, iffy narration

Mark Twight's writing is consistently engaging, but the narrator consistently mispronounces lots of things (e.g. he calls the climbing grade 5.11 "five point one one", instead of the correct "five eleven"). Although he has a good reading voice, these mispronunciations are very distracting.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Real on a different level

This book doesn’t mess around with alpine fairytales, and instead dives deep into raw accounts from the mountains and the psyche. The cynical viewpoint can be surprisingly refreshing and relatable. I’d highly recommend this book to many climbers - but not all.

Narrator is good.

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  • The Lonely Reader
  • 2016-09-02

An exciting, fresh, and viciously enjoyable book

I thought I was going to get a super-technical and edgy climbing book, and was a bit skeptical when I began listening.

After a listening to a few chapters, this quickly became one of my all-time favorite mountaineering books. Mark has a way of explaining his thoughts and actions that really connects with the audience, which is rare for this genre.

I particularly loved how uncompromising this book is in its focus. The chapters are each the unfiltered author's version of articles, so they can be read in any order. They're ordered chronologically, and are also accompanied with additional author's notes. These notes act as a retrospective, and offer some new explanations and insights.

The sense of danger reminded me a bit of the passages from Savage Arena by Joe Tasker, but far more sustained. This guy has put himself in some unbelievably dangerous situations. It's rare we get to hear much from someone like this - so many of them went home to the Alps, Himalaya, or Karakoram before they were done.

The narrator has some mispronunciations with YDS grades ("5 point one one b") and place names (Nanga Parbat is one of the hardest place names for me to say, to be fair), which can be a turn off at times. He otherwise does a great job, and I really recommend this book. Lots of fun, lots of adrenaline, and an incredible amount of content packed into this book.

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  • Greg
  • 2020-08-23

Truth, taken black, no sugar

I am not part of Mark's scene as he puts it. I carry different demands (thankfully) but I really appreciate his naked honesty. This is the first audiobook that has pointed out my ethical and morel concessions for the sake of being PC or getting along. This ultimately has let down my community and myself, both in the mountains and outside of them. Listing too much of this book has made me uncomfortable and left me angry at myself but in a way that has invigorated a return to stronger ethics and less passivity. This is the only audiobook I have listened to twice in a row. I have refrained from listening a 3rd time. Time to act. I'll come back in a year and see how uncomfortable I still feel.
Thanks Mark

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  • BC
  • 2015-03-05

Provocative

I read Extreme Alpinism (also by Twight) nearly every day for a year when it first came out. It really impacted my world view.
For whatever reason, it took me 15 years to get around to reading Kiss or Kill.
The writing is inspiring, abrasive, funny and sad. If you are in a place in life where you are trying to expand personal boundaries or limitations, this is a good read.
The narrator does a good job of catching the cadence and attitude of the writing, but struggles with pronunciation on climbing terms and gear names.

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  • Miguel
  • 2019-11-08

Narrator needs to do his research.

It really bother sne when a "professional" book reader can't be bothered to do a bit of research on how to pronounce the names of places and people that are repeatedly mentioned in the book. I know. I'm being picky. But it really detracts from the story when you're spending an entire minute thinking of how ridiculous it sounded.

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2019-06-10

Ugh.

Listening to the words written by this jerk made me feel kinda sick. Sick that this ungrateful turd is somehow propped up by society. Bleh.

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  • Mowglie
  • 2023-03-14

the spirit of alpine climbing

Great stories and insights by Mark. Truly a must read for anyone interested in climbing. The book helps you realize the true mindsets needed for the sport, and the way you outta be/think. I recommend taking this book in slowly and with much thought as the author goes through each article.

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  • Charlie Bird
  • 2022-02-28

The narrator ruins fabulous stories

How is it possible that someone with zero context was allowed to narrate a story that has such specific terminology and dialogue. Excellent book But WTF? Narrator just plain detracts from the experience. What a shame

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  • Spencer W Moore
  • 2022-01-13

it's definitely about climbing

Sometimes it is painful when the grades are read out loud but otherwise a good way to get through Twight's bad attitude and bragging. Crucial Alpine history doesn't always have likable characters so be sure to not clutch your pearls...

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  • Christopher Beebe
  • 2021-11-25

Take It or Leave It

If you have the same inner corrosion as Mark Twight, this is a philosophical piece.

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  • Anonymous User
  • 2021-04-25

Probably

This is probably a pretty good book being that Mark is a world class climber. I just couldn't stay interested in the book. The narrating through me off.

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