Museum Community Engagement Manager Kristine Bretall recommends A Bird of Passage: The Story of my Life by Otto Lang.
What a book! Otto Lang is renowned for two very different careers: that of ski instructor and creator of ski schools and for his work in the film industry as a director and producer. This “Ottobiography” (his words!) is compelling, comprehensive, honest, and eminently readable. I’ve been staying up way too late as I’ve gotten caught up in the best part of any story: “What’s going to happen next?” Lang is not only a great storyteller, he tells tales that surprise the reader when thinking of his age and his candidness on mistakes and teenage imbroglios.
From Lang’s early years in Bosnia-Herzegovina (he was born in 1908) where he first saw skiing and became enamored of it, to family financial struggles in Salzburg while being exposed to the arts and literature, to the audacious choice to become a ski instructor after quitting a secure job his father had arranged for him at the post office…
…Lang’s story is that of audacious choices backed by hard work and perseverance.
From teaching skiing in Austria and New Hampshire, to starting ski schools at Mounts Rainier, Baker, and Hood, becoming ski school head at Sun Valley to working in San Diego and Hollywood, his travels by train, ship, bus, and car hearken back to a time when travel was more time consuming, at times more glamorous, but certainly took a lot of planning without the internet.
It’s also a joy to read about the interconnectedness of those early decades of skiing and how the instructors from Hannes Schneider’s Ski School ended up in far-flung corners of the earth and deeply influenced the ski industry and interestingly, the film industry.
Highly recommended. Find it in our collection here.
