Vertebrate Digital imprint: 108 books

Land of Tempest reveals Shipton at his best - writing with enthusiasm and humour about his explorations in Patagonia in the 1950s and 1960s. He is an astute observer of nature and the human spirit, and this account of his travels is infused with with his own zest for discovery and the joy of camaraderie....

‘It is often from our setbacks, even our weaknesses, that we derive some of our greatest blessings.’ That Untravelled World is the autobiography of one of the greatest adventurers of the twentieth century. Eric Shipton was a pioneering explorer, journeying to places that did not feature...

In 1934, after fifty years of trying, mountaineers finally gained access to the Nanda Devi Sanctuary in the Garhwal Himalaya. Two years later an expedition led by H.W. Tilman reached the summit of Nanda Devi. At over 25,000 feet, it was the highest mountain to be climbed until 1950. The...

In China to Chitral H.W. ‘Bill’ Tilman completes one of his great post-war journeys. He travels from Central China, crossing Sinkiang, the Gobi and Takla Makan Deserts, before escaping to a crumbling British Empire with a crossing of the Karakoram to the new nation of Pakistan. In 1951...

In 1939 British cyclist Tommy Godwin cycled 75,065 miles in a single year. Think about that for a second: that's an average of over 200 miles each day. And it's a mark that still stands after almost eighty years. In The Year, Dave Barter resurrects the legend of the year record - a challenge nearly...

Frank Smythe’s fascinating book Kamet Conquered tells of his successful bid to make the first ascent of Kamet (7,756 metres) in 1931. Through Smythe, an experienced high-altitude mountaineer, the reader experiences all the tension, fatigue, discomfort and struggle of a major expedition but is also...

Outwardly, ‘Britain’s most experienced teenage Alpinist’ is a brave young mountaineer. But he’s not experienced at all, at least not in the way he really wants to be. Behind his death-defying climbs there lurks a great deal of fear – fear of the opposite sex, fear of failure, fear of not...

Alastair Borthwick's Battalion is the widely acclaimed story of a British Army infantry unit in the Second World War. Written in Germany just after VE Day, Battalion captures the immediate memories of troops at war. It gives the soldier's view of events, avoiding moralising or sensationalism, and...

‘Hand (man) wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.’ So read the crew notice placed in the personal column of The Times by H.W. ‘Bill’ Tilman in the spring of 1959. This approach to selecting volunteers for a year-long voyage of 20,000 miles brought...

In 1982, following the relaxation of access restrictions to Tibet, six climbers set off for the Himalaya to explore the little-known Shishapangma massif in Tibet. Dealing with a chaotic build-up and bureaucratic obstacles so huge they verged on comical, the mountaineers gained access to Shishapangma's...

‘Whether these mountains are climbed or not, smaller expeditions are a step in the right direction.’ It’s 1938, the British have thrown everything they’ve got at Everest but they’ve still not reached the summit. War in Europe seems inevitable; the Empire is shrinking. Still reeling...

Major Norton gave the order to fire two or three times. Their advanced machine gunners could be seen rushing forward and establishing themselves in commanding posts. Almost at once the ridge we were occupying was swept by machine gun fire. E.F. Norton lived a life of distinction in the declining...

Born in the foothills close to the Himalaya Steve Berry had from an early age an urge to become a traveller, an adventurer, an explorer, and until the age of thirty-eight years he tried hard to satisfy two opposing forces. Half of him wanted to find a satisfactory career path while the other half...

‘Many a beautiful plant cultivated to deformity, and arranged in strict geometrical beds, the whole pretty affair a laborious failure side by side with divine beauty.’ A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf is the second book in John Muir’s Wilderness-Discovery series. It is within this work...