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World Mountaineering Takes Grand Prize at the 1999 Banff Mountain Book
Festival
World Mountaineering: the world's greatest
mountains by the world's greatest mountaineers,
"a beautiful and highly informative book about peaks and
mountain places all over the world," is the winner of the
1998 Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize, the $2000 Phyllis
and Don Munday Award, sponsored by the Alberta sections of the
Alpine Club of Canada.
According to jury chair, Bob Sandford, the book
is an elegantly produced repository of exciting information
including locator maps, route photographs and main route
selections of some of the world's best climbs. It features
articles by the some of the world's best climbers including an
introduction by Sir Chris Bonington and historical summaries,
route descriptions, photographs and practical advice by Greg
Child, Roger Mear, Ed Douglas, Kurt Diemburger, Steven Venables,
Beth Wald, Simon Yates, Steve Roper and Canadians Chic Scott and
Barry Blanchard. Edited by Audrey Salkeld and published by the
U.K.'s Mitchell Beazley, World Mountaineering also includes
descriptions of future climbing challenges. "This book is
going to be influential in determining where history will next be
made in mountaineering," says Sandford.
There were 72 books entered from eight countries
this year, from which 24 finalists were sent to an international
jury, consisting of Canadian author and historian Bob Sandford,
the Assistant Secretary of the Alpine Club (UK) Sheila Harrison,
and author and curator for the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in
Torino, Italy, Roberto Mantovani. Winners in the other categories
follow:
Mountain Image Category, $500 prize sponsored by
Miles High Image Centre in Banff, Canada
Stone and Silence
by Linde Waidhofer, which won the Mountain Image Category, is a
book of landscape photographs taken in the desert country of the
American southwest. Published in the United States in 1997 by
Western Eye Press, Stone and Silence made a
"particularly stunning impression" on the jury members.
Adventure Travel Category, $500 prize sponsored
by Mountain Travel*Sobek, California
The Clouded Leopard
by Canadian author Wade Davis, published in Canada in 1998 by
Douglas and McIntyre, is the winner of the Adventure Travel
category. This book deals with the theme of diminishing natural
and cultural diversity from a worldwide perspective. "Of all
the books entered in the festival, it pronounced most articulately
on the sense of loss that is currently invading our notions of
adventure," says Sandford. He adds, "It is perhaps
telling that almost all the books submitted in the Adventure
Travel category this year catalogued loss; loss of cultural
tradition, loss of biological diversity, loss of wildness and,
finally, loss of landscape and the opportunity to fulfil oneself
in it. "
Mountain Exposition Category, $500 prize
sponsored by Mountain Lights Bookstore in Lake Louise, Canada
Going Higher: Oxygen, Man and Mountains
(Fourth Edition) by the legendary Dr. Charles Houston, published
in the United States in 1998 by The Mountaineers Books, is the
winner of the Mountain Exposition Category. Sandford says the jury
faced a particularly difficult problem choosing between Going
Higher and High Altitude Medicine by Dr. Herb Hultgren.
"These were two great books on high altitude physiology
written by two famous researchers being entered in the same year
in the same category," he says. "They are written by
renowned world experts, both with decades of experience, both good
writers, both citing many of the same sources and both citing each
other's work in books that define the limits about what we know
about high altitude physiology today".
Mountain Literature Category, $1000 Jon Whyte
Award, sponsored by the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies,
Banff, Canada
Postcards From The Ledge : Collected
Mountaineering Writings Of Greg Child,
published in the United States in 1998 by The Mountaineers Books,
is the winner of the Mountain Literature category. "This
energetic, insightful and well written book captivated the
jury," says Sandford. "There is a lot of intelligence in
Child's book and a great deal of wisdom and humour. Like all good
literature, the book tells its stories slowly and
eloquently."
Special Jury Mention, sponsored by Sector Sport
Watches
Chomolungma Sings The Blues by
Ed Douglas, published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Constable,
received a Special Jury Mention. Young British writer Ed Douglas
made a very positive impression with his book about his adventures
around Everest. "Read this book -- you won't be able to put
it down" says Sandford.
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