What makes today’s mountain climbing books — the narratives — unique, among those that have come before? Some are a little contrived, but is that for good reason?

Although I am principally focused on reading through mountain literature to understand the genre and identify the climbing classics so I can make a definitive list (and some other lists, too), I read several newly released books every year. I can’t help but compare the new one’s to things that have been widely read or in print for decades.

The newest sub-genre of climbing books are about underrepresented populations and sharing new perspectives. For two examples, Headstrap by Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar and Alpine Rising by Bernadette McDonald. Both are award winning books, and they both focus on Sherpa and other indigenous climbers and their families and local communities in the Himalaya and Karakoram, which have been underrepresented in mountain literature. Reviewing history and subjects with a new lens are also popular products right now, for example, Other Everests: One Mountain, Many Worlds, which is a collection of original articles by researchers and experts edited by Paul Gilchrest, Peter Hansen, and Jonathan Westaway. Other Everests addresses everything from the names of Chomolungma to hyper masculinity in the heyday of Himalayan mountaineering.

Combining self-help with outdoor pursuits, or using climbing or climbing as a platform to include a topic that could stand on its own. For example, Francis Sanzaro introduces us to Zen Buddhism through the Zen of Climbing, which seems to work beautifully together. Well, sometimes it works. I have seen some hiking and self-help combination books, and they are two separate books duct-taped into one, but I haven’t seen a actual-climbing related bad duct-tape job, yet.

There are many books that are biographies and memoirs of lives of climbers. They span lifetimes or a period of time, such as the 1980s. Think of the David Smart biographies of Royal Robbins, Paul Preuss, or Emilio Comici , or the memoirs of Katie Brown, Mimi Zieman, or Rick Accomazzo. For the most part, this is not new, as biographies and memoirs have been in the genre, and I hope that they continue. They’re usually, but not always, my favorites.

In fact, no one writes a book recounting a single climb, anymore, with the exception of Mark Synnott’s book about Honnold’s remarkable solo of El Cap. And even that work covered more than the lonely ascent of Free Rider. Stories of singular ascents were the large-scale trip report from the Himalayas. What started as a travelogue by Edward Whymper in the 1800s, became obligatory titles including logistics, journal entries, and maps, of the first successful ascent of major peaks, like Annapurna or the first ascent of Chomolungma’s West Ridge. No, today we are telling stories of what those old single-climb stories overlooked and plainly ignored, biographies of swaths of time, and even whole lives.

I have noticed that many books are smaller, or have smaller print and are more compact than they used to be. Interestingly, very few have made old-fashioned pocket-sized books popular again; seems publishers know we like them a little larger. And there aren’t many coffee table books being made, with the rare exception of more compact hardcover books that include more photography, like the upcoming Mountaineering Women. I’ve wondered whether the colorful guidebooks from Falcon Guides, and those that have followed their lead and made well-photographed guides, into the backpack-sized coffee table book of today? The cost of paper, and word-to-size value tend to drive many of these decisions.

I recall, not too long ago, the good folks from Adventure Books, from Vertebrate Publishing, often share on their personal social media feeds about the growing cost of paper, and what that has done to the books they publish. How many copies will they print initially, that can give a profit, and what size does the print fit in, and they consider margins. Perhaps this has always been the way it has been, but the cost of paper has risen noticeably over the last five years.

I don’t like all of these trends. Although I love the increase in biographies and memoirs, I wish there was at least a great coffee table book with photos and maps every couple of years. The guides are nice, but I also think all the “promotional” and well-chosen photos diminish the notion of exploring; I prefer my guidebooks with more words and needing a separate topo map, perhaps from USGS. And new books today make me appreciate the older books in an unexpected way: The old books’ flaws of narrow perspectives, singular climbs, and often colonial and nationalist leanings opened us up for today’s perspectives. We shouldn’t write in the old themes today, but the new content allows us to enlighten, and sometimes correct, the perspectives we had in the past.

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