Ascent

‘The climbing community needs this sort of thing like oxygen at the moment. Everyone's so tired of short snippets online and much of this important historical information will be forgotten. Anthony has done a real service to British climbing with this wonderfully detailed, expansive and inspiring book.’ – Neil Gresham

Following the Olympics, climbing is one of the fastest growing sports in the UK. There are now some 5 million climbers in the UK and over 450 indoor climbing walls. Reflecting this growing interest in the sport, rock-climbing has become a growth area for publication in the last decade. Recently many famous climbers have published autobiographies or ghost-written biographies. There has been a notable increase in books published by lesser known, amateur climbers: e.g. Anna Fleming Time on Rock (Canongate, 2022).

The Climb situates itself in this context. It is literary in tone and in some of its references, but it is a work written from inside the lifeworld of climbing. It communicates the feeling of rock-climbing and the sometimes wild and chaotic character of the world of rock-climbers with an unmatched immediacy through a story about the development of rock-climbing from the 1950s to the present. It weaves together a detailed history of the leading rock-climbers and the development of climbing as a practice, with personal reminiscence, connecting both to wider social changes. The Climb tells a unique story in a distinctive voice.