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Mountains of the Mind
- Adventures in Reaching the Summit
- Narrated by: James A. Gillies
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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Beyond the Mountain
- Written by: Steve House, Reinhold Messner - foreword
- Narrated by: Steve House
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach. Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty.
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Excellent listen
- By U. Javed on 2019-01-01
Written by: Steve House, and others
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The Calling
- A Life Rocked by Mountains
- Written by: Barry Blanchard
- Narrated by: Barry Blanchard
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world. At 13 he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone's Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family's cycle of poverty.
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stunning book read by one of the alpinism greats
- By owen mcleod on 2021-10-02
Written by: Barry Blanchard
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The World Beneath Their Feet
- Mountaineering, Madness, and the Deadly Race to Summit the Himalayas
- Written by: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Scott Ellsworth
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
While tension steadily rose between European powers in the 1930s, a different kind of battle was raging across the Himalayas. Contingents from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States had set up rival camps at the base of the mountains, all hoping to become recognized as the fastest, strongest, and bravest climbers in the world. Climbing the Himalayas was the Greatest Generation's moonshot - one shrouded in the onset of war, interrupted by it, and then fully accomplished.
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Excellent account of the race to conquer Everest!
- By Carlos Delaney on 2022-07-14
Written by: Scott Ellsworth
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Conquistadors of the Useless
- From the Alps to Annapurna
- Written by: Lionel Terray, David Roberts - foreword
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.
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A must-read for every student of climbing
- By Spencer S. on 2022-07-05
Written by: Lionel Terray, and others
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The Summit
- Written by: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, Pat Falvey
- Narrated by: Pat Falvey
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On 1 August, 2008, 18 climbers from across the world reached the summit of K2, the world's second-highest and most dangerous mountain - a peak that claims the life of one in every four climbers who attempt it. Over the course of 28 hours K2 had exacted a deadly toll: 11 lives were lost in a series of catastrophic accidents.
Written by: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, and others
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Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- Written by: Amanda Padoan, Peter Zuckerman
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
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Good story, narrator needs work
- By Guillaume Knowlden on 2019-09-17
Written by: Amanda Padoan, and others
-
Beyond the Mountain
- Written by: Steve House, Reinhold Messner - foreword
- Narrated by: Steve House
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach. Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty.
-
-
Excellent listen
- By U. Javed on 2019-01-01
Written by: Steve House, and others
-
The Calling
- A Life Rocked by Mountains
- Written by: Barry Blanchard
- Narrated by: Barry Blanchard
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world. At 13 he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone's Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family's cycle of poverty.
-
-
stunning book read by one of the alpinism greats
- By owen mcleod on 2021-10-02
Written by: Barry Blanchard
-
The World Beneath Their Feet
- Mountaineering, Madness, and the Deadly Race to Summit the Himalayas
- Written by: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Scott Ellsworth
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While tension steadily rose between European powers in the 1930s, a different kind of battle was raging across the Himalayas. Contingents from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States had set up rival camps at the base of the mountains, all hoping to become recognized as the fastest, strongest, and bravest climbers in the world. Climbing the Himalayas was the Greatest Generation's moonshot - one shrouded in the onset of war, interrupted by it, and then fully accomplished.
-
-
Excellent account of the race to conquer Everest!
- By Carlos Delaney on 2022-07-14
Written by: Scott Ellsworth
-
Conquistadors of the Useless
- From the Alps to Annapurna
- Written by: Lionel Terray, David Roberts - foreword
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.
-
-
A must-read for every student of climbing
- By Spencer S. on 2022-07-05
Written by: Lionel Terray, and others
-
The Summit
- Written by: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, Pat Falvey
- Narrated by: Pat Falvey
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 1 August, 2008, 18 climbers from across the world reached the summit of K2, the world's second-highest and most dangerous mountain - a peak that claims the life of one in every four climbers who attempt it. Over the course of 28 hours K2 had exacted a deadly toll: 11 lives were lost in a series of catastrophic accidents.
Written by: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, and others
-
Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- Written by: Amanda Padoan, Peter Zuckerman
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
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Good story, narrator needs work
- By Guillaume Knowlden on 2019-09-17
Written by: Amanda Padoan, and others
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The Worst Journey in the World
- Written by: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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This gripping story of courage and achievement is the account of Robert Falcon Scott's last fateful expedition to the Antarctic, as told by surviving expedition member Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Cherry-Garrard, whom Scott lauded as a tough, efficient member of the team, tells of the journey from England to South Africa and southward to the ice floes. From there began the unforgettable polar journey across a forbidding and inhospitable region.
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know what you are getting into
- By A on 2022-06-16
Written by: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
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The Will to Climb
- Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna - the World's Deadliest Peak
- Written by: David Roberts, Ed Viesturs
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
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The best-selling author of No Shortcuts to the Top and K2 chronicles his three attempts to climb the world's tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak, Annapurna in the Himalaya, while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made - or attempted - the ascent, and what these exploits teach us about facing life's greatest challenges.
Written by: David Roberts, and others
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The Climb
- Written by: Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston DeWalt
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Climb is a true, gripping, and thought-provoking account of the worst disaster in the history of Mt. Everest: On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by experienced leaders attempted to climb the highest mountain in the world, but things went terribly wrong...
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A must read companion to Into Thin Air
- By Amazon Customer on 2022-11-10
Written by: Anatoli Boukreev, and others
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Still Alive
- A Wild Life of Rediscovery
- Written by: Forrest Galante
- Narrated by: Forrest Galante
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Very few individuals can truthfully say that their work impacts every person on Earth. Forrest Galante is one of them. As a wildlife biologist and conservationist, Galante devotes his life to studying, rediscovering, and protecting our planet’s amazing life-forms. Part memoir, part biological adventure, Still Alive celebrates the beauty and determined resiliency of our world, as well as the brave conservationists fighting to save it.
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Really Enjoyed!
- By Dakota Mortensen-Brady on 2023-01-26
Written by: Forrest Galante
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The Nazi Hunters
- The Ultra-Secret SAS Unit and the Hunt for Hitler's War Criminals
- Written by: Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
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In the late summer of 1944, 80 British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers undertook a covert commando raid, parachuting behind enemy lines into the Vosges Mountains in occupied France to sabotage Nazi-held roads, railways, and ammo dumps, and assassinate high-ranking German officers, undermining the final stand of Hitler's Third Reich. Despite their successes, more than half the men were captured, tortured, and executed. After the war ended, a top-secret black ops unit was formed to hunt down the SS commanders who had murdered their special forces comrades....
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all new to me
- By Gary McAuley on 2022-02-27
Written by: Damien Lewis
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The Shadow of Vesuvius
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- Written by: Daisy Dunn
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
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When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his 37-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder's notebooks - filled with pearls of wisdom - and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire.
Written by: Daisy Dunn
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T. Rex and the Crater of Doom
- Princeton Science Library
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What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Walter Alvarez, one of the Berkeley scientists who discovered evidence of the impact, tells the story behind the development of the initially controversial theory. It is a saga of high adventure in remote locations, of arduous data collection and intellectual struggle, of long periods of frustration ended by sudden breakthroughs, of friendships made and lost, and of the exhilaration of discovery that forever altered our understanding of Earth's geological history.
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Rocks, Not Dinosaurs
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Written by: Walter Alvarez, and others
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A Life on Our Planet
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In this scientifically informed account of the changes occurring in the world over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future.
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Very informative
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Forty Years in the Wilderness
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Dolly Faulkner has many heart-stopping moments of terror and anxiety, living much of the time truly alone in the Alaskan wilderness. But she is not lonely, as the awesome space and beauty of the mountains fill her with appreciation of all things of nature. Dolly Faulkner came to Alaska as a young woman with the dream of living in the wilderness. Forty Years in the Wilderness is a true reality of carving out a homestead in the Kilbuck Mountains near a minor hotsprings that the regional Native corporation is now trying to claim.
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The narration is atrocious!
- By JJ on 2022-10-14
Written by: Dolly Faulkner
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- Unabridged
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A landmark in travel writing, this is the incredible true story of Heinrich Harrer’s escape across the Himalayas to Tibet, set against the backdrop of the Second World War. Heinrich Harrer, already one of the greatest mountaineers of his time, was climbing in the Himalayas when war broke out in Europe. He was imprisoned by the British in India but succeeded in escaping and fled to Tibet.
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i loved this book
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Written by: Heinrich Harrer, and others
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The Wild Places
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Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness? In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic, Robert Macfarlane sets out in search of the wildness that remains.
Written by: Robert Macfarlane
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Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days
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- Unabridged
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Story
In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.
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good nod to the original novel
- By A on 2022-07-03
Written by: Michael Palin
Publisher's Summary
The basis for the documentary film Mountain: A Breathtaking Voyage into the Extreme.
Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert Macfarlane reveals how the mystery of the world's highest places has come to grip the Western imagination - and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes.
His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime experiences to be had on high; and by 1924 the death on Mount Everest of an Englishman named George Mallory came to symbolize the heroic ideals of his day. Macfarlane also reflects on fear, risk, and the shattering beauty of ice and snow, the competition and contemplation of the climb, and the strange alternate reality of high altitude, magically enveloping us in the allure of mountains at every level.
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What listeners say about Mountains of the Mind
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-06-23
Book on how mountains & the imagination
Interesting book on how mountains & the Western imagination. The stories are more focused on the British explorers of Everest. Excellent narration.
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- karla arens
- 2020-09-07
Pretentious Narrator
I’ve read this book and it is brilliant but the audible version’s pretentious narration I find off putting and does a disservice to the content. Sadly, I’m exchanging for something else
6 people found this helpful