Top Book Recommendations by Jimmy Chin: Best Books for Success

Jimmy Chin is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, film director, and author. Chin has been a professional climber and skier on The North Face Athlete team for over 20 years. In 2006, Chin achieved the first successful American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest with Kit and Rob DesLauriers. Five years later, Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk captured the first ascent of "Shark's Fin," a granite wall on India's Meru Peak.

Chin's work documenting expeditions and climbs has been featured in numerous publications, including National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Outside magazine, and others. In 2019, Chin was awarded the National Geographic "Photographer's Photographer Award" by his peers. His first book of photography documenting his career in the mountains, There and Back, became a New York Times Best Seller in 2021. 

Chin co-directs with his wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Together they directed the documentary Meru, which won numerous awards, including the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and Free Solo, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, a BAFTA and seven Primetime Emmys. Free Solo had the highest-grossing opening weekend in history for a documentary. The film eventually grossed $29 million dollars at the box office.

Chin and Chai's 2021 documentary, The Rescue, chronicles the Tham Luang cave rescue. The Rescue won numerous awards, including the People's Choice Award at Toronto International Film Festival, and was also shortlisted for an Academy Award. Chin and Vasarhelyi are currently working on their first scripted feature, Nyad, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, about Diana Nyad's historic swim from Cuba to Florida.