In three decades of climbing, author Alan V. Goldman learned many truths and has found the time necessary to meditate on the nature of life and the human condition amid the daunting backdrop of the mountain environment. Goldman shares his experiences and insights in a revised and expanded fifth edition of his poetry collection, Reflections on Mountaineering: A Journey Through Life as Experienced in the Mountains. Presented as 138 narrative-style poems, some of which are rhyming, while others are in blank verse, or are prose poems, the book contains much of what Goldman learned and experienced directly, as well as what the author views as wisdom acquired by observing others, such as mountaineering instructors and peers.
“Collectively, the poems constitute a ‘meditation’ on the nature of reality itself as perceived in the context of exploring the limits of human understanding and achievement,” Goldman writes.
Award-Winning Insights
Reflections on Mountaineering: A Journey Through Life as Experienced in the Mountains is the winner of the 2022 Pacific Book Award in the category of sports. The poetry collection has garnered numerous glowing reviews from both professional critics and Amazon readers praising Goldman’s poetic achievement. Throughout his mountaineering adventures, Goldman realized that many moral issues people confront in everyday life are also present in the high mountains—only to a sharper degree. He muses on such topics as the effect of awe and wonder, the nature of fear and how to confront it, the lure of the big mountains, and the role that chance, or luck, plays in the trajectory of one’s life.
Through his poems, Goldman offers the general public access to otherwise “hidden” truths often said to be experienced by mountaineers. The author’s reflections cover a wide range of topics, with some poems addressing the human perception of reality in the context of the meaning of life itself, and how climbers impart human meaning, and lore, to the inanimate mountain by the very act of climbing it, thus impressing meaning out of nothingness—which the author contends is the ultimate existentialist act. Other poems deal with the need to confront the challenge posed by each peak, variations on time perception in the mountains, the sharpening of a climber’s insight and situational awareness, dealing with the force of a mountain’s presence, and coping with the power of a mountain’s reality.
As one professional critic remarked, “The whole work edifies in its celebration of a timeless meeting between nature’s awesome power and brave souls willing to face their limits.” — Mari Carlson, US Review of Books (2021).
Get a Copy Today
Readers interested in getting a copy of Reflections on Mountaineering: A Journey Through Life as Experienced in the Mountains (Fifth Edition, Revised and Expanded)(June 2023) may do so at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other outlets, some of which are listed in the author’s website, www.mountainreflections.art. The author himself reads aloud many of his poems, among other features, including a complete recording of his radio interviews with Ric Bratton (This Week in America), and Benji Cole (of CBS Radio). The book is available in multiple formats for readers to enjoy as they prefer.
— Kindle eBook— Audiobook— Paperback— Hardcover
About the Author
Alan V. Goldman is a graduate of Horace Mann School (1975), Harvard College (1979), and Harvard Law School (1982). He was also elected a Member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1979. In addition to his passion for his mountaineering avocation, he practiced “toxic tort” litigation, and corporate law involving the potential for environmental liabilities of parent companies for the acts of their subsidiaries and affiliates, as well as the potential for environmental liability of successor companies and lenders.
He practiced law for many years and is now retired, affording him the opportunity to share a lifetime’s worth of moral and psychological insights and lessons learned while striving for success in mountaineering.
Visit Alan V. Goldman’s fulsome website, www.mountainreflections.art, to learn more about his work, or contact the author. Reach out on Facebook to connect through social media.
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