Writer, climber and qualified mountain leader Anna Fleming selects from her library some of her favourite and formative reads. Anna’s debut book, Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains, is out now
• The Living Mountain
by Nan Shepherd (1977)
Nature writing at its finest. A stunning lyrical meditation on Scotland’s Cairngorm mountains.
• A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
by Eric Newby (1958)
A fashion executive leaves London on a journey of mishaps and misadventure into the remote Himalaya.
• Braiding Sweetgrass
by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)
Indigenous American worldviews are lovingly interwoven with scientific knowledge of plants.
• Space Below My Feet
by Gwen Moffat (1961)
Having deserted her army post, Gwen charts her journey from freewheeling climber to becoming Britain’s first female mountain guide.
• The Snow Leopard
by Peter Matthiessen (1978)
Zen-Buddhist inflections guide this spiritual and ecological quest to find the elusive snow leopard in Tibet.
• On Time and Water
by Andri Snær Magnason (2019)
An Icelandic writer pays tribute to his home nation’s vanishing glaciers while celebrating the webs that connect all beings, which are fundamental to our survival.
• Ice Rivers
by Jemma Wadham (2021)
A professor of glaciology shares thrilling scientific discoveries and encounters with polar bears in this love letter to frozen landscapes.
• Wanderlust
by Rebecca Solnit (2000)
A masterpiece of political and cultural history that explores what it means to walk in the many landscapes that we all inhabit.
Read our review of Time on Rock: A Climber’s Route into the Mountains by Anna Fleming
