Reviews for Cold Wars Reviews for Cold Wars
This is Andy Kirkpatrick at his best.
Tom Richardson,
Climb Magazine
The rarest of things, a mountaineering book that really matters.
John Horscroft,
Climber Magazine
Kirkpatrick's wry sarcasm, his deft character sketches of his climbing partners, and the often ridiculous situations of the game of big-wall climbing lead to many laugh-out-loud moments. The portrayal of Kirkpatrick's developing insight into his motivation and his growing realisation of the importance of life outside climbing make this a climbing autobiography on a par with Steve House's Beyond the Mountain, only with more jokes about poo and Johnny Depp.
John Chivall,
TGO Magazine
Cold Wars is a funny, poignant read and I enjoyed it very much.
Alastair Humphreys,
www.alastairhumphreys.com
Brilliantly written, painfully thoughtful and yet still an incredibly easy and gripping read. Human and brilliant at the same time.
Jon Doran,
OUTDOORSmagic.com
A good second book from one of the the UK's best climbing showmen which will hopefully open the door for a third, as this man surely has more mountain stories to tell.
Jack Geldard,
UKClimbing.com
It's laugh-out-loud funny at times, and amazingly honest at others. Read it – but then you would have done anyway.
Rosie Fuller,
Adventure Travel Magazine
The book weaves an impressive line between man and mountaineer ... and manages to break out of an over-worked genre by dint of the author's honesty and vulnerability.
John Appleby,
To Hatch A Crow
A superbly written insight into the life of a world class performer torn by internal battles, never satisfied because to stand still is to go backwards and infuriatingly not recognising that he doesn't need to be be measured against anyone.
Dave Mycroft,
MyOutdoors.co.uk
A book that is moving, powerful and hugely entertaining, often within a single chapter, Cold Wars joins Psychovertical as one of the new classics of mountaineering literature.
Nicola Underdown,
rockclimbinguk.co.uk
Cold Wars is a superb book. For those like me who don’t climb, it is a fantastic insight into a specialised world with pithy comment on the difficulties faced by those who inhabit it. For those who climb big walls in winter, you may well be in it. Regardless of who you are, go and read it.
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Cold Wars
Climbing the fine line between risk and reality
ISBN: 9781906148256
Author: Andy Kirkpatrick
Format: Hardback (276pp + colour plates)
RRP: £20.00
Date:Wednesday, 5 October 2011
The brilliant follow-up to the Boardman Tasker Prize winning Psychovertical by Andy Kirkpatrick.
‘I was aware that I was cold – beyond cold. I was a lump of meat left for too long in a freezer, a body trapped beneath the ice, sinking down into the dark.
‘I was freezing to death.’
In this brilliant sequel to his award-winning debut Psychovertical, mountaineering stand-up Andy Kirkpatrick has achieved his life’s ambition to become one of the world’s leading climbers. Pushing himself to new extremes, he embarks on his toughest climbs yet – on big walls in the Alps and Patagonia – in the depths of winter.
Kirkpatrick has more success, but the savagery and danger of these encounters comes at huge personal cost. Questioning his commitment to his chosen craft, Kirkpatrick is torn between family life and the dangerous path he has chosen. Written with his trademark wit and honesty, Cold Wars is a gripping account of modern adventure.
Kirkpatrick has taken up the baton on behalf of Generation X and,
at just the right moment, has said ‘Yes I can’.
Chair of judges on Psychovertical – winner, Boardman Tasker Prize 2008
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About the author
Andy Kirkpatrick has a reputation for seeking out routes where the danger is real, and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond. He was born and raised on a council estate in Hull, one of the UK’s flattest cities, and suffered from severe dyslexia, which went undiagnosed until he was 19. Thriving on this apparent adversity, Andy transformed himself into one of the worlds most driven and accomplished climbers, and an award-winning writer. In 2001 he undertook an eleven-day solo ascent of the Reticent Wall on El Capitan, one of the hardest solo climbs in the world. This climb was the central theme of his first book Psychovertical, which won the 2008 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Cold Wars is his second book. Andy lives in Sheffield with his two children.