Honnold, a 30-year-old climber hailing from Sacramento, California, has gained worldwide notoriety for his filmed free solo climbs ranging from Yosemite to Africa. I didn't like how only one woman climber was written about; I know there are a lot of women climbers out there and I got annoyed with the focus on the men. What we want is 'Free Solo', 2018, the Oscar winning documentary by directors and cameras Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. On occasion, books like that never get finished although that is more of a rarity for me - I almost always give a book another shot. I just loved climbing, and I've been climbing all the time ever since, so I've naturally gotten better at it, but I've never been gifted.

which if you read the Author’s Note at the end that is exactly what this book is, he took articles “verbatim” and put them into this book. Some reviewers have knocked the book for not focusing entirely on the free solo attempt, but I liked that it included other climbing stories and information. After the first pages of Alone On The Wall I forced myself to read this memoir from two perspectives: the climber and the non-climber.

I would liken it myself to the movements of a great cargo ship, so easy to steer in the endless ocean, but prone to serious problems in the confines of a foreign harbor where obstacles abound. Then again, they put Alex in an MRI scanner, which showed a lack of response to fear in his amygdala.

The experience of free soloing is not a rollercoaster-type rush of pure excitement, Honnold tells us. David Roberts (1943–2021) is the author of thirty books on mountaineering, exploration, and anthropology.

My right thumb took the fingers' place on the good part of the ripple and my left hand shot out left to grab the sloping loaf.