Lots of Work and DIY

I am still busy here, after trying to make the pdf for the book myself I have decided to employ someone to do it for me. Apparently it will take them and hour as opposed to my 10 where I shall probably fail miserably.

I also have been doing a fair bit of teaching rock climbing. Discover Leading and Performance Rock climbing were the most recent. As well as doing a few other courses in between. I also managed to get back to Gogarth with something of an annual pilgrimage to Mousetrap. Such a great route for E2.

I then went and climbed what is suppose to be classic adventure at VS on the Lleyn. Not sure I agree, as my idea of an adventurous rock climb is that it involves more rock than grass. Sadly I thought Avernus was a waste of good paper in any guidebook. Yes I remember it and it certainly wasn’t type I fun. In that I didn’t enjoy it as I did it. It was neither type II fun as I have yet to enjoy it in retrospect. However I am going to suggest it as type III fun, as I will enjoy it when I convince someone else to go do this ‘classic’ outing and laugh at there ensuing epic.

Evenings have been DIY mainly painting and rock fax work. So has been rather dull round here for a while. Although I made it out to a friends birthday on Sunday Night and wrote off monday and most of tuesday. Tomorrow I head back to PYB for another climbing course and have prepared a 8 pm lecture about my new book. Not sure how it will go but hopefully I can judge the reaction to see whether I want to do a proper book launch.

New Book: Hanging By A Thread

hangingbyathreadcoverblog

Over the past few years I have been working on a new book. One that steps away from a technical manual on some form of rock climbing or mountaineering skills. The book started with a small idea that made it to a blog post on the ten greatest inventions to rock climbing. I then took that idea and ran with it.

In it original form I have to say that the book was something of a total rambling, a sprewing onslaught of my very tangental stream of consciousness. I thought it was nearly ready for publication and got a friend to proof it. She suggested it was far from ready and needed heavily editing before it would be ready.

It was a hard process, but every chapter she tore apart came back together more concise and more readable than anything I could possible have produced on my own. What I was left with was something I and hopefully she is very proud of. A book on the history of climbing and human achievement blended together to show that climbing is not an island and the historical. If you like it is a curiosity shop of climbing and mountaineering.

We also step out of that history for two stand out chapters on the effects of altitude of the human body and possibly the greatest analysis of why we climb. The Exploration of risk chapter will be a interesting read if you have ever tried to answer the question of why you engage in the risky activity of rock climbing and mountaineering. Although it leaves you with as many questions as it answers. No where else has the current psychology understanding of risk-taking behaviour been put together in one place.

My hope is that whilst you might know some of the stories the context in how I introduce them to you and tell the story will be something new to you. It is currently available on US amazon here, I will update to have a link to uk amazon when in comes online shortly. It is currently only available as a kindle ebook, iPad version to follow and I am going to try and get a print on demand version up and running soon.