This story is so delightful and mad it could happily pass for fiction. It’s 1943 and Benuzzi, an Italian POW, decides to escape from captivity along with two fellow inmates in an attempt to climb nearby Mount Kenya - and then break back into their camp afterwards.
In the face of so much jeopardy - the risk of capture, wild animals, mountain conditions - there’s an overriding, infectious spirit to this book. I also absolutely love the ingenuity they drew on to fashion mountaineering equipment and build up a store of food using only the scraps available to a prisoner.
Best of all, I think, is their spirited, gleeful defiance of both the war and their captivity, instead focusing on the simple delight of climbing to the top of a mountain. It’s a short read that’s guaranteed to entertain!