Scottish book of the week

Wild Wanderings: A Life Amongst Mountains Phil Gribbon, £9.99, Luath Press Ltd With 70 years’ experience of mountaineering and more than 100 first ascents of Arctic alpine peaks, Phil Gribbon takes readers on some of his most memorable wanderings in the wild in this honest, captivating and often humorous book.

Awarded the Polar Medal in 2014, Phil’s career is respected throughout the mountaineering community, especially at St Andrews University, where he had been a physics professor.

His accounts of expeditions are reflective, sometimes downplaying the dangerous dramatics of mountaineering with light-heartedness.

Born in Cannes and raised in Northern Ireland, Phil moved to St Andrews in 1961 and has lived there since.

While the book charts “serious” mountaineering, with quite a bit of specialist lingo chucked in, it’s accessible for everyone.

The book is filled with anecdotes about people and animals – both dead and alive – that Phil and his fellow mountaineers encounter.

The discovery, on a glacier, in China, of the body of a Japanese girl who went missing 20 years ago is particularly harrowing and evocative.

Balancing this sobering chapter is one about a fearless Arctic fox which ransacks a campsite.

Things that go bump in the night, dramatic rescues of sheep and a confrontation with a “no-nonsense ex-army man” also make for humorous reading.

Review by Gayle Ritchie. We have three copies to give away. Send your name, address and phone number, with ‘Wanderings’ as subject field, to gritchie@ thecourier.co.uk by June 12.

9/10