Living the Life

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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