<p>‘Pascal Bruckner is one of the great French essayists of our time. In his newest, and most beautiful, book he ruminates on what mountains have represented to human beings throughout the ages and why we are drawn to climb them, often at great risk. <i>The Friendship of a Mountain</i> is about awe, danger, self-overcoming, and, yes, blisters. We die and the mountains remain: and thus it should be.’<br /><b>Mark Lilla, Professor of Humanities, Columbia University</b><br /><br />‘This book is a remarkable meditation on the natural world, how humans imagine and distort it and all too often fail to understand and learn from it. Like all of Bruckner’s work, it is steeped in a remarkable intellectual culture, wide reading, and the spirit of the <i>moraliste</i> which informs all of Bruckner’s work. It is an original and important intellectual contribution and, at the same time, an extremely enjoyable read that will appeal to all ages, especially in these pandemic or endemic times.’<br /><b>Richard J. Golsan, University Distinguished Professor, Senior Scowcroft Fellow, the Bush School, Texas A&M University<br /><br /></b>"The book unfolds partially like what one would imagine of a conversation between John Muir and Edward Abbey if they met at a Swiss ski lodge: penetrating perspectives, aloofness, appreciation for the landscape, but most of all insightfulness into the environment’s impact on and transformation of the human soul, all captured with a soaring, insistent lyricism that vibrates between macro and micro."<br /><b><i>Ecokritike</i><br /></b></p>