Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic this week is a Freebie and I’ve chosen to focus on novels about or set in mountains. I’ve read seven of these books, but the other three are books I own but haven’t read yet – marked with an asterisk*.

Gray Mountain by John Gresham – in which the big coal companies come under the microscope, companies that are  ruining the environment by strip-mining in the Appalachian mountains, clear-felling the forests, scalping the earth and then blasting away the mountain tops to get at the coal. All the trees, topsoil and rocks are then dumped into the valleys, wiping out the vegetation, wildlife and streams.

The Black Mountain by Kate Mosse, historical fiction set in May 1706 on the northern part of the island of Tenerife, where Ana and her family live in the shadow of a volcano, known locally as the Black Mountain.

 Thin Air by Michelle Paver, set in the Himalayas on Kangchenjunga, as a group of five men set out to climb the mountain in 1935. It is based on real events, although the 1907 and 1935 expeditions described in it are fictional. But the setting is real, the characterisation is excellent as is the feel of the 1930s, with its class snobbery, and racism and above all the creeping sense of dread that pervades the whole book.

*Cairngorm John: a Life in Mountain Rescue by John Allen, who was an active member of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team and for most of them acted as Team Leader. In ‘Cairngorm John’ (his call sign when in contact with search and rescue helicopters) he recalls the challenges of mountain rescue and the many changes he has witnessed. A TBR.

*Murder in the Glen: a Tale of Death and Rescue on the Scottish Mountains by Hamish MacInnes although fiction it gives a ‘true portrayal of Highland life by a world authority on mountain rescue as well as the the Scottish Highlands.’ Another TBR.

*Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver, Appalachian Mountains above her home, a young mother discovers a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature: the monarch butterflies have not migrated south for the winter this year As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. Yet another TBR.

Silver Lies by Ann Parker, a murder mystery set in 1879/80 in the silver-mining town of Leadville, Colarado in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin was first published in 1982 when it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award. The Black Hill is one of the Black Mountains on the border of England and Wales, although fictionalised in this book.

The Fall is not just a gripping account of the dangers of rock climbing and mountaineering, mountains of Wales and the Alps, culminating on the North Face of the Eiger. It is the story of Rob Dewar and Jamie Matthewson from their childhood up to Jamie’s death in Snowdia 40 years later. But it’s also the story of their parents and how their lives are interlinked. I found it enthralling, one of those books that make me want to look at the ending to see how it all turns out. I managed to stop myself, however, and read impatiently to the end anxious to know what actually happened between them all.

The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley, the first in the series based the books on the legends of The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. This one is about Maia, taking her back to Brazil, the country of her birth. I loved all the details about the building of the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain in the Carioca Range, overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro.