It’s once again my pleasure to bring to our ChiWulff compadres near and far another book giveaway – Yvon Chouinard’s Some Stories: Lessons from the Edge of Business and Sport.
This is a beautiful hardbound, coffee-table book packed with images cherry picked from YC’s long career and adventurous wanderings in both the natural and business worlds.
I grew up studying and idolizing the big wall climbers of Yosemite in their heyday; YC was part of that rogue group, several of whom, besides YC, went on to found climbing and later clothing and gear companies (anyone remember Royal Robbins or Doug Tompkins?) and become influential changing the way climbing was conducted here in the states and the world.
These days, in part due to his brutally frank activism and at times damned harsh tones, YC tends to be one of those guys people either love and idolize or despise, and that’s actually damned unfortunate. Even when we encounter historical and current figures we don’t perhaps agree with on key issues, there’s still something – often a great deal – to be gleaned from their life experience, particularly when those figures have lived, worked, and succeeded spending at least part of their time and effort “outside the box”.
YC has certainly lived much of his life outside the box.
YC insists he’s more of a storyteller than a writer, though he writes with clarity and passion (most of the time), and I’ve found his commentary particularly from his younger days to be the most interesting portions of the book, back when he was much more focused on surmounting challenges in the physical world, solving some of the most daunting climbing (and skiing) problems of the day, and piecing together business plans to meet needs he encountered along the way.
This book is a fine effort and offers a glimpse into the life and soul of one of the greatest climbers of the day; it’s worth the effort to snag a copy just for the Yosemite and South American climbing stories alone.
DRAWING CLOSED – shipped to North Carolina on the 28th!.
Cheers.
