Touching The Void Author Unhappy to Feature on Reading Lists

He climbed one of the world’s most dangerous peaks, survived a 150-foot drop and then overcame a broken leg and frostbite in order to safely return back to camp. But appearing on GCSE reading lists has proved too much of a challenge for mountaineer Joe Simpson.

Simpson’s 1988 book Touching The Void was turned into a documentary film by director Kevin Macdonald, using cameras provided by Aimimage / ICE Film. The documentary won a host of awards, including the 2004 BAFTA for Best British Film.

Since then the original book has been added to worldwide reading lists, but not always to the delight of everybody. Last year Simpson had several twitter spats with cheeky students, who resented being made to study the tale of courage and mountain endurance. After years of fielding academic questions about the text, Simpson appears to have finally decided that enough is enough.

The author has added a new Students section to his personal website, where he employs a certain dry humour to acknowledge that “we all have to deal with the consequences” of his book finding its way onto school reading lists. Simpson refuses to answer any more queries about the book from students, and instead offers them several alternative sources of knowledge and other guidance.

The text from the section is below. You can find more information about Joe Simpson on the website Touchingthevoid.com.