Stone Palaces

Unearth this diamond in the rough, Stone Palaces, immediately! Climber Geof Childs' ability to turn a phrase - be it recounting a Vietnam firefight or a Himalayan expedition gone askew - reduces scribes like Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried) and John Krakauer (Into Thin Air) to mere belayers. Mid-book you'll find "Bah," just about the finest wilderness love story ever penned. I knew Geoff was hilarious when he taught our ragtag NW Outward Bound '81 group to climb stone palaces. I'm sure grateful he delivered by way of a book nearly twenty years later.

In "Stone Palaces," Mr. Childs draws on portions of his fascinating past to create cohesive, inspiring vignettes. This book will keep climbers and non-climbers up all night on its own merits, but will hold a special attraction for anyone who has ever attempted to capture, on paper, the meaning of a personal experience. This book is inspiring. First, the writing is clean and concise and keeps the reader "in the room." Second, the stories bring their settings alive, whether they take place in a Vietnamese jungle, on the sides of distant mountains, or in an abandoned church in the Eastern US. Third, and most importantly, "Stone Palaces" reminds us why Socrates said "the unexamined life is not worth living." Buy it, read it, give it to a friend and buy it again (it won't be returned to you any time soon).