The climber Ed Douglas, who, as I mentioned recently, will be speaking at the Kendal Mountain Festival in Cumbria (November 19-22), is among writers whose books have been short-listed for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, which will be presented at the festival. His book, Upland: The Strange History and Vital Future of Britain’s Mountains (The Bodley Head), is one of six on the short list. The others are: Borrowed Land: A Highland Story by Kapka Kassabova (Jonathan Cape); Where The Earth Meets the Sky: A Story of Penguins, People and Place in Antarctica by Louise K Blight (Westbourne Press); Everest Surgeon: Michael Ward and the Exploration of High Asia by Riaz Dean (Pen & Sword Books); First on Everest: The Life of Howard Somervell by Graham Hoyland (The History Press); and Crux by Gabriel Tallent (Fig Tree), a novel about two teenage climbers in the US.

The award will be made on Friday, November 20.