- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Constable; 1999 First Edition edition (23 Sep 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0094795908
- ISBN-13: 978-0094795907
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.5 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
30,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Australia & New Zealand > Australia > Tasmania
- #28 in Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Climbing & Mountaineering > Mountaineering History & Biography
- #50 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Speciality Travel > Adventure
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
"It's an unusual fact that all people in wheelchairs are drunk magnets ... if your idea of help is being hauled up a flight of stairs by some pissed-up punter, risking severe injury, when in reality you were trying to cross the road, then you're welcome to it."
Paul Pritchard had scaled mountains from the Andes to the Himalayas, but a small sea-stack in Tasmania was to be the scene of the most significant climb of his career.
From his struggle for life, hanging semi-conscious from a rope after being struck by a falling boulder, to the subsequent fight to unify his body and severely damaged brain, Pritchard traces a path to another way of living.
His previous award-winning book Deep Play: a Climber's Odyssey had explored the motivations that had driven him to seek out the dangers and rewards of top-level climbing. The Totem Pole puts everything he has learned about himself to the test on the long journey back from paralysis to the mountains.
Fellow patients, his medical team, friends and family are skilfully and perceptively drawn, but sharing the heart of the book is the woman whose superhuman efforts at the rock face saved his life and who was to end their relationship during his rehabilitation. The resolution of their story shows Pritchard at his clear-sighted best.
Humorous, cynical, lyrical and passionate, this is a story told without self-pity, but one which fathoms the depths of a quality of solitude that the author had once sought on the mountainside, but found to be the stuff of daily life after his injury.
A compelling chronicle of one man's reawakening. --Alex Hankin
Product Description
Paul Pritchard gained a reputation as a climber of routes of extreme technical difficulty. In 1998, a horrendous accident left him paralysed. This text recalls his climbing memories and tells of his fight for recovery.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
Even if you are not a climber I strongly recommend this book. Paul's recovery from severe hemiplegia is truely inspirational. There is something we can all learn from this book. He has had more than his fair share of accidents (in his first book - Deep Play), and now that his climbing career has ended, he has had to find a new one - writing. This book is well written, serious, yet funny in a remarkably relaxed matter-of-fact way. It thoroughly deserved to win the Boardman-Tasker Award for Mountain Literature.
Format:Hardcover
For a family who are experiencing the tradegy of a head injured relative this makes an inspirational read. We have had our moments of despair as did Paul Pritchard the author. Even though we recognise that no two cases of head injury are alike this book does give a clear insight into the difficulties faced by the patient. We feel having read the book that there always remains hope of a reasonable outcome after head injury and we as a family remain realistic but hopeful.
Format:Hardcover
This book is an excellent read. It is the story of one man's bravery and courage in desperately dragging himself out of the pit of mental despair and great physical disability after being involved in a most horrific accident and creating a new life for himself in a situation where many others might have just given up and accepted a future life in a wheelchair. This book is an inspiration to anyone recently diagnosed with severe brain injury or anyone related to such a person, it shows them that there is life after brain injury.
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