Joe Simpson's famous book 'Touching the Void' is the story of the time he was cut from his climbing partner, fell into a glacier and was left for dead while climbing in South America. This companion book tells a wider story about his life before the fall, and his life afterwards. Touching the Void is extraordinary enough, but I found this wider perspective even more fascinating. From the time the rock ledge he was bivvying on collapsed into space leaving him suspended by a thread with nothing to do but wait, to the unexpected fame the book brought, campaigning for Greenpeace, living guilt free on the dole, all the painful rehabilitation after the injury... The quote on the back of my book says 'confused with no easy conclusions', and I can't argue with that, but it's very interesting! ( )

After being blown away by Touching the Void, This Game of Ghosts took me by surprise in that it started with Simpson's account of growing up as an army brat in Malaya and Germany, with boarding school in England during term time. At first it felt a bit disappointing - interesting enough from another writer, perhaps, but not what I'd expected from Simpson. However, he doesn't let the reader down, and it later becomes a useful backdrop to understanding what makes these crazy, risk-taking mountaineers tick. If Simpson's anything to go by, the mountaineers of tomorrow are the primary school kids of today who are already on first name terms with their local accident & emergency staff. You know the kind - a dangerous combination of excess energy and fearless recklessness and several plaster casts down before they're in double figures.

This Game of Ghosts is both a prequel and sequel to Simpson's horrific Andes accident recounted in Touching the Void. The latter was gripping, can't-look-away horror, so it seemed unlikely that any follow up book could hold a candle to it, but in many ways This Game of Ghosts takes the drama up a notch and the reader into utter disbelief. Even the most risk-averse armchair reader could probably cut Simpson some slack for being unfortunate enough to have that dreadful accident in the Andes, but then you learn in This Game of Ghosts that he'd had not one but two major falls before that in the Alps which could have killed him, and incredulously goes back to climbing after the Andes fall and is almost killed in Asia.

This is not just a book of mountain escapades and disasters; it's an unsentimental, self-deprecating introspection of reckless passion, loss and what drives mountaineers to take such enormous risks time and time again. The ghosts in the title refers to the huge number of young friends Simpson loses in the mountains over the years, many of whom beam at the camera in photos included in the book, young twenty-somethings who appear carefree and high on life.

I found this book hugely affecting, in many ways more than Touching the Void simply because Simpson exposes just how huge the risks are for those addicted to serious climbing, no matter how experienced.

4.5 stars - sobering yet utterly riveting. True rubber necking territory. Simpson triumphs once again. ( )

I've read and enjoyed several other books by Joe Simpson (including, of course, the marvelous "Touching the Void,") but "This Game of Ghosts fell sort of flat for me.

The memoir is essentially the rest of Simpson's life -- outside of the portion detailed in "Touching the Void" when he nearly died while making a first ascent of Siula Grande in Peru. "This Game of Ghosts" is wide ranging, covering Simpson's childhood games with his brothers and sisters to touching on the climbing friends he lost, but told in a more matter-of-fact type of way.

I think Simpson is a pretty great writer, but this book was too scattered without much emotional impact. I ended the book with the impression that Simpson was frequently reckless and was sort of an accident waiting to happen. ( )

Interesting, but the descriptions of the author's numerous injuries were too much for me. ( )

Very personal, and at time deeply introspective, exploration about what drives the author to climb despite the inherent risks. ( )