The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within (Unabridged)
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4.8 • 21 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A renowned climber and National Geographic photographer shares his incredible adventures—and the early trauma that drove him to seek such heights.
“An extraordinary memoir of mental illness that reads like a thriller.”—Amy Ellis Nutt, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Becoming Nicole
“In order to escape madness, I will live madly. I will risk my life in order to save it.”
Growing up in the mountains of Utah, Cory Richards was constantly surrounded by the outdoors. His father, a high school teacher and a ski patroller, spent years teaching Richards and his brother how to ski, climb, mountaineer, and survive in the wild. Despite a seemingly idyllic childhood, the Richards home was fraught with violence, grief, and mental illness. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and dropping out of high school, Richards subsumed himself in the worlds of photography and climbing, seeking out the farthest reaches of the world to escape the darkness. Then, in the midst of a wildly successful career in adventure photography, a catastrophic avalanche changed everything, forcing Richards to confront the trauma of his past, evaluate his own mental health, and learn to rewrite his story.
The Color of Everything is a thrilling tale of risk and adventure, written by a man who has done it all: He’s stood at the top of the world, climbed imposing mountain faces alone in the dark, and become the only American to summit an 8,000-meter peak in winter. But it is also the story of a tumultuous life—a stirring, lyrical memoir that captures the profound musings of an unquiet mind grappling with the meaning of success, the cost of fame and addiction, and whether it is possible to outrun your demons. With exquisite prose and disarming candor, Richards excavates the roots of his trauma and shares what it took for him to climb out of it.
Customer Reviews
Extraordinary
I listened to Cory read the audio version & it got me through my entire working (lonely) holiday season. Every night when I realized I got to climb into bed and just listen to Cory’s story before falling to sleep, it filled me with anticipation, joy, and gratitude. Excruciatingly brave. Utterly gorgeous. Raw and real and fascinating and it has helped me reconnect with my humanity. If I ever cross paths with him in this lifetime I will just HUG HIM. Wow. Just wow. What a life lived (and he’s young!) What a voice. What a gift.
MUST READ.
This book is art and truth and mental health advocacy and adventure. A coming of age account of life and all its shadow folds and bright spots, crevasses and climbs, attempts, fails, summits, descents, all the other colorful everything stops along the way.
Cory shares his story through a lens of rigorous honesty. He looks at the hard parts of life fearlessly and shares them as they relate to his own life experience and story, with an invitation for exploration to anyone who may have- or have had - a similar or relatable experience.
This book is part welcome mat, stepping stone, & outstretched hand to anyone who feels "broken," "damaged/spoiled/rotten," "othered," "unseen," "conditionally or only partly accepted/acceptable or loved/lovable," and "not entirely okay," (as we all do), as is Cory himself.
There is truly something in here for everyone. This book looks fearlessly at mental health systems and experiences, at sexual expression, identity, and relating, at gender identity, expression, & relating, at power dynamics, and at a million different "identity hats" we all wear, seeking connection, that in the end seem to keep us more separate than a part. The continuously hinted invitation I perceive from Cory's book and life is "to thine own self be true," which is no easy task and requires the shared stories of experience, strength, and hope from those like Cory who truly dare to live their own lives as their true selves as best we can in each moment of each day.
This book is very appropriately named.
Cory Richards is as talented a writer as he is a photographer, and as beautiful a person as the mountains he climbs and the people and experiences he keeps in his life.
I truly hope this book reaches the hands, eyes/ears, hearts, & collective consciousness of the millions in the world who struggle with feeling alone in their experience(s), the friends and family members who love them, and the therapists, healers, teachers, clinicians, healthcare workers, social workers, old timers, and seekers who dedicate their lives to dispelling the myth that we are all separate and alone.