Living the Life

Tales from America's Mountains & Ski Towns

by David J. Rothman

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Featuring 38 true-life stories of adventure and self-discovery, adrenaline, and honesty, a former professional NCAA downhill competitor reveals the soul skier’s raison d’être: finding exhilaration, faith, grief, love, and everything that truly matters amid the gloriously tangible, tactile, break-your-leg-if-you’re-not-careful rocks, trees, and gullies of the alpine world. These essays, collected from numerous glossy ski and lifestyle journals, including Powder, Couloir, and Telemark Skier, celebrate the land of winter and the author’s roles as mountaineer, ski racer, father, and all-around life enthusiast. His stories will appeal to anyone who has ever hit the slopes and felt the adrenaline rush of perching atop a steep precipice, knowing that skiing is the physical, emotional, and spiritual place where deep truths are explored and the graceful interaction of body and terrain answers back.

 

REVIEWS

“It’s a select few who let their passion dictate their lifestyle. Doing so requires the sacrifice of a certain sense of normalcy, but the payback is tenfold in experiences that are extraordinary. Rothman is one of those few, and he articulates the highs, and lows, of that life choice perfectly in these pages. Living the Life is about one man’s relationship with the mountains, but the stories are applicable to anyone who lets his passion lead the way.”
Derek Taylor, editor, mtnadvisor.com, and former editor, Powder

“Poet, powderhound, musician, ex-racer, teacher, philosopher–all sides of Renaissance man David Rothman are on display in this collection, which ranges from satire to whimsy to the profoundly grateful and the essential questioning. Emerson? Check. Thoreau? Check. Petrarch? Only David Rothman would put Petrarch in a story about skiing’s ‘earthly enjoyment.’ In a voice that sparkles with intelligence, he is capable, in the end, of deep sincerity . . . David Rothman is a writer who skis and a skier who writes, very well.”
Peter Shelton, author, Climb to Conquer

“David has tuned his words as well as his skis, and this collection offers the equivalent of playful jump turns, graceful arcs and high-speed cruisers . . . He can be affectionate and smart-ass, funny and philosophical . . . At times David’s words conjured the wind-nip on my cheeks, snow billowing over my skis or a warm campfire surrounded by friends.”
Sandy Fails, editor, Crested Butte Magazine

 

Categories: , Product ID: 1458

Additional information

Imprint

Conundrum Press

ISBN

9781938633324

Format

Paperback

Pages

226

Size

5.5 x 8.5

Publication Date

November 5, 2013

The Author

David J. Rothman

David J. Rothman

David J. Rothman's most recent volumes of poetry both came out in 2013: The Book of Catapults (White Violet) and Part of the Darkness (Entasis). A volume of essays about skiing, mountaineering and mountain towns, Living the Life (Conundrum), also came out in 2013. Rothman’s previous volumes of poetry include Dominion of Shadow, Beauty at Night and The Elephant’s Chiropractor, which was a Finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and he edited The Geography of Hope: Poets of Colorado’s Western Slope. He is also co-author, with the late Stanley Rothman and Stephen Powers, of a social science study, Hollywood’s America: Social and Political Themes in Motion Pictures. He lives in Crested Butte, Colorado. He is Editor of the Rocky Mountain Poetry Series, published by Conundrum Press. His poems, essays and scholarly work have appeared widely, in journals including Appalachia, Atlantic Monthly, Gettysburg Review, Hudson Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry, and scores of other newspapers, journals and periodicals. He has worked extensively both as a teacher and as an arts and educational administrator. He has been a President of the Robinson Jeffers Association and serves on several non-profit boards in education and the arts, including the governing board of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). He has also served on a number of grant review panels for organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the President’s Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the Colorado Council on the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council. He has been a Colorado Statewide judge for Poetry Out Loud and has served as Poet in the Schools in Chatfield (CO) Senior High School.

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