Regions of the Heart: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves – David Rose and Ed Douglas

Biography of British climber Alison Hargreaves who died on her descent of K2 in 1995, having summited Everest solo and without bottled oxygen – the first woman to do so – only three months earlier.

Based on the personal diaries of this intensely private woman, struggling to make her career as a climber, on the threshold of leaving her abusive husband and torn between her love of the mountains and that for her children, I found this too voyeuristic a read for comfort. Thankfully the book closes without raking over the coals of the controversy that followed her death.

Amazon.co.uk link: Regions of the Heart: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves – David Rose and Ed Douglas

Regions of the Heart – review by Charles Arthur, The Independent 22 August 1999 (republished on UKClimbing)