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Climbing Books Big Winners at 2022 Banff Book Competition

If you're looking for a good read this winter, here's a list of festival winners to start with

The winners for the 2022 Banff book festival show that climbing literature is enjoying a moment. The Mountain Fiction and Poetry prize sometimes goes to a travel or environmental title, but this year’s winner, Native Air, by Jonathon Howland, is all about the enduring, life-changing power of climbing.

The Mountain Literature prize was won by  The Fox of Glencoe, a gorgeous book on Scottish climbing and rescue legend, Hamish MacInnes. Lauren deLaunay Miller’s Valley of Giants: Stories from Women at the Heart of Yosemite Climbing took the Climbing Literature prize. Miller’s anthology of texts brought to light the continuous presence of women climbers in one of the world’s most important climbing areas.

Alpinist editor emeritus, Katie Ives’s history and meditation on climbing hoaxes,  Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams, won a Special Jury Mention.

“The Girl in the Gully” from Climbing Magazine by Astra Lincoln won the Mountain Article prize. All in all, a great line-up both for personal reading and potential gifts for the holiday season.

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