Between a Rock and a Hard Place
By Aron Ralston
(Atria Books, Paperback, 9780743492829, 368pp.)
Publication Date: August 30, 2005
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Google eBook, Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Paperback, Paperback, Compact Disc, Mass Market Paperback, Paperback
Categories: Adventurers & Explorers, Inspirational, Mountaineering
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The International Bestseller Between a Rock and a Hard Place--Now the Major Motion Picture 127 Hours
Hiking into the remote Utah canyonlands, Aron Ralston felt perfectly at home in the beauty of the natural world. Then, at 2:41 P.M., eight miles from his truck, in a deep and narrow slot canyon, an eight-hundred-pound boulder tumbled loose, pinning Aron's right hand and wrist against the canyon wall. Through six days of hell, with scant water, food, or warm clothing, and the terrible knowledge that no one knew where he was, Aron eliminated his escape option one by one. Then a moment of stark clarity helped him to solve the riddle of the boulder--and commit one of the most extreme and desperate acts imaginable.
Honest, inspiring, and undeniably astonishing, 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place has taken its place in the annals of classic adventure stories.
Aron Ralston, a native of the Midwest, retired from a career as a mechanical engineer at age twenty-six before moving to Aspen, Colorado. Since his accident, he has completed his unprecedented project to climb the fifty-nine Colorado peaks of more than 14,000 feet, alone, in winter. This is his first book.
'Ralston manages to keep the tension flowing throughout . . . alternating each chapter of angst-ridden, present-tense narrative with a cosier chapter of climbing nostalgia. This lends the book a Hitchcockian rhythm, see-sawing neatly between calm and tension. . . . . He is somehow able to chronicle the ebb and flow of his thoughts and feelings during his ordeal with an exactness that gives his book the emotional pull of a psychological thriller.'
Craig Brown, book of the week in the MAIL ON SUNDAY
'Ralston is a passionate man who has lived his life resolutely pursuing this passion. His fortitude in his dire predicament was, as he would say, awesome, and from this it is possible to learn much about hope in the face of overwhelming odds.'
Toby Clements, DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Heroic, searing and compelling' Benedict Allen '[This book has] the emotional pull of a psychological thriller'
MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A gripping book . . . It not only details his entrapment and escape but tells vivid tales of extreme mountaineering prior to that defining misadventure'
Joanna Walters, DAILY EXPRESS
'Ralston is superb at evoking the epic beauty of the land, and his description of his ordeal is riveting: think Touching the Void directed by Tarantino'
Sarfraz Manzoor, NEW STATESMAN
'Riveting . . . if you only read one adventure book this year, this is it'
THE GREAT OUTDOORS
'Here is one man's heroic struggle with the infinite, a searing and compelling read. Aron Ralston tells his agonizing, inspiring tale of survival with all the verve and honesty you'd expect of someone who somehow found inspiration even in the face of a lonely death.'
Benedict Allen
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