The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain literature continues to attract a substantial degree of interest and level of entries. In this, our forty-first year, there were 32 entries, with authors from
Great Britain, Ireland, USA, Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic.
The Judges for 2024 are Paul Pritchard (Chair), Joanna Croston and Rehan Siddiqui.
They have selected the following six books for this year’s shortlist:
Bernadette McDonald
Alpine Rising
Sherpas, Baltis, and the Triumph of Local Climbers in the Greater Ranges
Mountaineers Books
A ground-breaking examination of the contemporary mountaineering landscape. McDonald focuses on the pivotal roles played by Nepali and Pakistani climbers in shaping the future of high-altitude endeavours. The Author skilfully highlights the incredible achievements of these mountaineers, who have often gone unrecognised by their Western counterparts, thereby elevating the voices of these mountaineers to their rightful place.
Bernadette McDonald was the founding Vice President of Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre and director of the Banff Mountain Festivals for 20 years, and few people have the relationships that McDonald does with the world’s most accomplished alpinists. The author of more than a dozen books about mountaineering and mountain culture, she regularly lectures on a variety of topics for universities, festivals, and alpine clubs. McDonald lives in Banff, Alberta, Canada.
Rheged Centre, 2024
Photo credit: Vanessa Powell.
Kate Nicholson
Behind Everest
Ruth Mallory’s Story – First British Expeditions
Pen & Sword Books
A massive undertaking, it places Ruth Mallory in her rightful position as not merely the ‘wife’ of George Mallory. The book skillfully weaves Ruth’s personal struggles and contributions into the often-murky history of women in early 20th-century mountaineering.
Kate Nicholson is an historian and a writer. Both Kate and Ruth Mallory had three young children when their husbands left to climb Everest from the north. Kate’s husband returned safely. George Mallory died on the mountain on his third attempt in 1924, one hundred years ago this year. Kate researched Ruth's life as a way of making her visible. In order to process her own experiences, Kate wanted to understand Ruth’s. We all live with loved ones who take risks of some kind or another. This is an extreme version of life, it is what happens at the far edge of normal experience.
Ruth was there at the beginning of a revolution in attitudes to women’s climbing. A natural climber, in 1921 Ruth was invited to be a founder member of the first all female rock climbing club in the UK, the Pinnacle Club. Ruth did not see George’s expeditions from an armchair, but from a mountain. To understand her, Kate has learned to climb. She has felt the exposure of the routes Ruth climbed, the muscle tension of holding positions, the thrill, the danger and the story in those climbs: their beginning, middle and end.
Kate started researching this biography two decades ago when many of those who knew the Mallory’s were still alive. Together with friends and relations, she has been supported in this protracted endeavour by mountain literature giants Robert MacFarlane, Peter Gilliman and Sara Wheeler. Wade Davis says of ‘Behind Everest’ that ’The key to George is his beloved wife Ruth and yet until now, Ruth has remained a great mystery. Kate Ncholson’s biography is both vital and long overdue …'
Clive Oppenheimer
Mountains of Fire
The Secret Lives of Volcanoes
Hodder & Stoughton
A captivating exploration of the intricate relationship between volcanoes and humanity. This in-depth study seamlessly blends scientific insight with some rarely told historical narratives.
Clive Oppenheimer is a volcanologist and filmmaker at the University of Cambridge. His research aims to understand how volcanoes work, the hazards they pose and the impacts of the world’s largest eruptions on climate and society. His favourite volcano is Erebus in Antarctica, where he spent 13 austral summers, and discovered campsites used by members of Captain Scott’s last expedition. He has written two-and-a-half books and made two film documentaries with Werner Herzog (Into the Inferno, Netflix, 2016, and Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, Apple TV+, 2020).
Nandini and Deepa
© Azra Bhagat
Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar
Headstrap
Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling
Mountaineers Books
Beautifully weaves together the rich cultural heritage and climbing traditions of the Sherpa and Bhutia community of Darjeeling. Through engaging stand-alone stories, many of which are recorded for the first time, this book offers readers a captivating glimpse into the lives of the legendary mountaineers that populate the ‘Kathmandu of India’.
Nandina Purandare is editor of the internationally renowned Himalayan Journal. As a writer and editor for the Avehi-Abacus Project, she has developed educational materials for public schools across India. With a background in economics, Purandare has consulted for various organizations and research centers and is an enthusiastic trekker and avid reader of mountain literature. She, along with co-author Deepa Balsavar, founded the Sherpa Project to record oral histories through in-depth interviews of members of the climbing Sherpa community.
A well-known illustrator and storyteller, Deepa Balsavar has created more than thirty children’s books. She has won numerous awards, including Tata Trusts’ Big Little Book Award for her contribution to children’s literature, worked as a consultant with UNICEF in South Asia, and served as a core team member of the Avehi-Abacus Project for two decades. Balsavar is an adjunct professor in communication design at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay.
© Peter Hoang
David Smart
Royal Robbins
The American Climber
Mountaineers Books
Offers a captivating portrait of a pioneering figure in the world of climbing, detailing both Robbins’ ground-breaking ascents and his profound influence on the climbing community. Smart meticulously chronicles Robbins’ journey from a troubled upbringing to a legendary climber and visionary.
David Smart is founding editor of Gripped magazine, editorial director at Gripped Publishing, and author of five guidebooks. His biography of Austrian solo climber Paul Preuss was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize, and his biography of Italian climber Emilio Comici won that prize along with the Banff Award for Climbing Literature. Other honors include the H. Adams Carter Award for Mountain Literature from the American Alpine Club. His work has appeared in Climbing, Rock and Ice, The American Alpine Journal, The Canadian Alpine Journal, and Alpinist. Smart resides in Toronto.
Graham Zimmerman
A Fine Line
Searching for Balance Among Mountains
Mountaineers Books
A gripping and introspective account of the challenges faced by the modern alpinist.
The book masterfully intertwines a thought-provoking exploration of ambition and courage with the pursuit of meaning in the face of a changing mountain and global landscape.
As a professional climber, Graham Zimmerman is one of the most acclaimed alpinists of his generation. After graduating from Otago University in 2007 with a degree in geography, he focused on alpinism, a pursuit that has taken him on expeditions to Alaska, Patagonia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and all over the lower 48 and Canada. His awards include the 2020 Piolet d’Or, 2016 Cutting Edge Award for Excellence in Alpine Climbing, 2014 Piolet d’Or Top 5 Finalist, and 2010 New Zealand Alpinist of the Year. Dedicated to using his platform for good, he holds leadership roles in a range of nonprofits and outdoor companies, including the American Alpine Club and Protect Our Winters. He lives in Bend, Oregon with his wife, Shannon, and their dogs.
Once again the Award continues to attract a high level of interest and entries on a variety of aspects of the mountain environment.
Steve Dean
Secretary
Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust