The winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature will be announced on October 7th. So who's going to win? This is the line up.
Learning to Breathe, by Andy Cave
On Thin Ice, by Mick Fowler
The Villain: the Life of Don Whillans, by Jim Perrin
Broad Peak, by Richard Sale
Mountain Rescue Chamonix - Mont Blanc, by Anne Sauvy
Only Jim Perrin with his biography of Menlove Edwards has won before. A synopsis of the short listed titles can be read at the Boardman Tasker award website .
I imagine the Anne Sauvy book is a translation of her 'Secours en Montagne' - has a book in translation ever won the BT before ? (have any been in the final round before ?)
Based on my not having read any of the books on the list and only having read reviews of three of them, I'd plump for Andy Cave. Then again, it does depend rather on who is doing the judging, and if they're all Jim Perrin's mates, he might squeeze through.
Andy Cave's book is the only one on the list I've read, although I've read a couple of Anne Sauvy's other books (one collection of short stories, the other a sort of documentary about Chamonix) & didn't think much of either. Isn't Perrin's book due out in paperback soon ?
Having read four of the five (not the Anne Sauvy) I would go for Cave. Fowler - enjoyable but not superb, Perrin flawed and won before. Sale - very workmanlike and a good reinterpretaton. Cave is actually quite literary(?)although I am sure on page 219 when he congratulates Brendan on a superfluous lead he would have preferred to have said superlative.
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