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Title details for Above the Clouds by Kilian Jornet - Available

Above the Clouds

How I Carved My Own Path to the Top of the World

by Kilian Jornet
Steven Brand
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 2 copies available

""Kilian Jornet is the most dominating endurance athlete of his generation.""—NEW YORK TIMES

""Inspiring and humbling""— ALEX HONNOLD

The most accomplished mountain runner of all time contemplates his record-breaking climbs of Mount Everest in this profound memoir—an intellectual and spiritual journey that moves from the earth's highest peak to the soul's deepest reaches.
Kilian Jornet has broken nearly every mountaineering record in the world and twice been named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. In 2018 he summitted Mount Everest twice in one week—without the help of bottled oxygen or ropes.

As he recounts a life spent studying and ascending the greatest peaks on earth, Jornet ruminates on what he has found in nature—simplicity, freedom, and spiritual joy—and offers a poetic yet clearheaded assessment of his relationship to the mountain . . . at times his opponent, at others, his greatest inspiration.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 25, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780062965837
      • File size: 174875 KB
      • Duration: 06:04:19

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      June 15, 2020
      A Catalan endurance athlete recounts his experiences and how they have shaped his worldview. As Jornet, only 32, unwinds his exciting life story--tales of mountain climbing, ski mountaineering, ultralong-distance running, mountain biking, and "skyrunning"--he also reflects on the effects of his adventures on his soul. The book, he writes, is "not about what I have achieved but what I have experienced, about feeling at peace with my values when I do something and embracing the possibility of change and failure as a reward for my soul." (To view his many achievements, check out his Wikipedia page.) The author's prose is unadorned, and while his insights on the adventurous life aren't groundbreaking, he successfully brings readers directly into his dangerous predicaments on the mountain. "Climbing a mountain is just putting your life in danger to try to reach the summit, then coming down again," he writes. "Clearly, this puts you in a category closer to stupidity than heroism." It's evident that competition with others is important to him, but he is more interested in testing his own abilities and keeping up with the level he demands of himself. For Jornet, there is nothing more glorious than just getting out there and running or biking or climbing; his virtuous cycle is to eat, train, eat, train, sleep, and repeat. "We must be the ones to manage our own bodies...they should always be under our control," he writes. Ultimately, the author wants to attain a "fleeting moment that ends with a sigh," to feel his "love for the mountains with total madness"--as euphoria or an "orgasm of adrenaline." It is not just an altered state, but a place of complete freedom. "Mountains," he writes, "are (still) a space of freedom, where lawlessness reigns for the good of everyone." Risks and rewards abound in Jornet's tutorial of how to experience the outdoors.

      COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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