I was supposed to play golf today for some team building at work, but a series of unfortunate events arose after planning this as our first round for two months. Our architect of the group had to back out since a client had to meet with him today but couldn’t meet before or after our round. Then the rain storm that started Monday was extended through the end of Wednesday. Then if was extended again through well after our tee time on this morning.

So we postponed our outing until the end of the month. Natalie reminded me that it should be warmer then, and the puddles on the course should dry up. But these golf guys (yes, sorry, they are all guys,) were willing to play in nearly any conditions except rain. Cold isn’t an issue. Frost, eh. Several of us are fine playing a ball off the pond; we know in winter, it will roll. That’s how I get my kicks around here in Peaklessburg.

Although I have done a lot of indoor gym climbing since moving to Pennsylvania, hiking has definitely won out to golf. While Pennsylvania trails are easier reach than they were from my old home in the Washington, DC area, they all look and feel a little bit the same. And they’re mostly walks, where you don’t need a backpack. If it’s longer than an hour, I usually take one for the family and me. And getting outside is better than just climbing in the gym or working on training in the garage or basement.

Well, that’s where I am at. Several new books are coming out in the next few months. Several will be nominated for the Banff Mountain Book Festival Literature Awards or the Boardman Tasker Prize at the Kendal Mountain Festival:

NEW CLIMBING BOOK RELEASES

In addition to Mimi Zieman’s Tap Dancing on Mount Everest(April 2, 2024) and Everest Inc. by Will Cockrell (April 16, 2024), which I addressed previously, there are at least six more climbing books of note that you may want to know about…

Alpine Rising: Sherpas, Baltis, and the Triumph of Local Climbers in the Greater Ranges by Bernadette McDonald — Released on February 20th, combines into one volume stories we know, stories we thought we knew, and stories that haven’t been told from the perspective of “local” climbers too many stories referred to as porters and Sherpas. I am reading it now.

The Longest Climb: A Memoir of Love, Mountaineering and Healing by Paul Pritchard — Coming out on April 16th, Pritchard tells of the aftermath of his traumatic injury and his enduring passion and affection for the mountains. I have my copy and will be reading this one shortly.

A Light through the Cracks: A Climber’s Story by Beth Rodden — In stores on May 1st. Rodden said on The Run Out podcast with Andrew Bisharat and Chris Kalous that she always knew that she would write a climbing book, but she didn’t imagine this would be the outcome. Time shaped it, and so did the trauma of being held hostage and parenthood. (Interesting to me, it is printed by Little A, an imprint from Amazon Publishing of Amazon.com.)

Fallen: George Mallory: The Man, the Myth, and the 1924 Everest Tragedy by Mick Conefrey — Also coming on May 1st, the documentary-turned author rehashes the same old, again. (No, I’m not excited. Click the link from the publisher if you want to know more.)

Mountains Before Mountaineering: The Call of the Peaks before the Modern Age by Dawn Hollis — Available on May 4th, Hollis’ book is the culmination of her PhD thesis and a remarkable and refreshing view on humanity’s view, at least in Europe, of the mountains. I have read her thesis and a manuscript and I think it is required reading for anyone trying to understand our relationship with the peaks.

Survival is Not Assured: The Life of Climber Jim Donini by Geoff Powter — It will be released on June 1st and I plan to get my own copy. This biography is of the great Donini and by an author and climbing historian I have admired for some time.

At a minimum, I will be writing up a reviews of Alpine Rising, The Longest Climb, and Mountains Before Mountaineering for you, with the latter first. I would like to read Rodden’s and Powter’s books too. I remember when Beth and the other climbers were kidnapped and have read Tommy Caldwell’s own autobiography, The Push, and the title comes from a seminal moment from both their lives, though both clearly traumatized by it, though differently.

Powter is a very informed climbing writer and has chosen a great subject in Donini. I am looking forward to seeing how it all comes together and what light it sheds on Donini’s grit and our passion and perseverance in the mountains.

OTHER BOOKS I AM READING NOW

I started listening to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. My organization’s leadership coach, Ross Polvara was also reading it and I wanted to read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, as I heard very good things from a member of our board of directors. Since the Jobs’ bio came out first, in 2011, I decided to start there. I did not know much about him beyond he was temperamental and eccentric. Isaacson does shed some light into why Jobs had such a unique lens on how the personal computer should work and how intuition may be the thing Westerners lack the most. I am about three-quarters the way through.

I am also reading, though I unintentionally took a break to focus on Alpine Rising, a memoir about a woman that grew up on Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine, and had some complicated detours in life, only to return. The book is Flat Ass Calm: A Memoir by Amy M. McMullen. The title makes my kids giggle and be weary when they see it. We learned of the island on a vacation to Coastal Maine in 2018. People talked about it as if it were Narnia or another magical place. We decided we’d have to visit another year and planned to return in two years. The pandemic closed Maine off to us, we visited in 2021. After visiting the island’s Cathedral Woods, taking in the interesting summer sunlight in the morning, and enjoying lobster by the island’s only pier, my interest in the place only grew. I discovered the book at Sherman’s bookshop in Damariscotta. I just finally decided this spring was when I needed it in these dark and is-spring-here-yet days.

Well, it’s not raining here any more. But the puddles and flooding on the neighborhood and the golf courses would make for very soggy socks.

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