Cozy night
Rules To Live ByBook club questions, food & host guide
Jimmy Chin with Daniel Duane
#4 New York Times Bestseller
1 week on the list
A cozy book club night for Rules To Live By by Jimmy Chin with Daniel Duane. Includes 8 spoiler-free discussion questions, food and drink pairings, a playlist, and a host guide, ready to print and share.
A club that likes memoir with a little grit, and that would rather share stories about their own lives than debate craft
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Jimmy Chin, the climber and filmmaker behind some of the most vertigo-inducing images ever made, turns inward to share the principles that carried him through risk, fear, friendship, and loss. It is a warm, hard-won book about how to choose a life, which makes it perfect for a night of soft lighting and honest talk.
Why it works for clubs
- Each rule or principle doubles as a conversation prompt, so the book hands you an agenda
- Risk and caution land differently for every reader, which makes disagreement gentle rather than heated
- It invites personal storytelling about mentors, fear, and the people who shaped us
- Short, reflective sections mean even the busiest member finishes with something to say
Reading level
Easy
Warm-up questions
- 1 Before we dig in: where did you read most of this one, and did it make you want to go outside or stay very warmly indoors?
- 2 Was there a rule or line of advice in here that you found yourself repeating to someone in your actual life this week? Tell us how that went.
Digging in
- 1 Chin writes about risk as something you learn to be in relationship with rather than conquer. What is one small risk you have made peace with, and one you have quietly decided is not for you?
- 2 So much of this book is about being taken in by a community of people who do a strange, demanding thing. When has a group of people adopted you like that, and what did it feel like to be let in?
- 3 Reading about mentors and elders who passed down hard-earned knowledge, who came to mind for you? Did you feel grateful, wistful, or a little of both?
- 4 The book treats patience and waiting (for weather, for conditions, for readiness) as a real skill. Did that comfort you or make you restless about something you are currently waiting on?
Going deep
- 1 Chin is honest about the cost of a life organized around something consuming. Without giving anything away, did the book leave you feeling the trade was worth it, and did your answer change for your own life versus his?
- 2 By the time you closed the book, which rule had quietly rearranged itself for you, meaning you understood it differently at the end than when you first read it? Keep it vague on details and just tell us what shifted inside you.
On the table
Big pot of green chile and white bean stew with cornbread
A nod to Chin's Jackson Hole and American West life, and the exact thing you want simmering when the talk turns to cold mountains and warm friendships.
Basecamp snack board: salted nuts, dried mango, dark chocolate, hard cheese, good crackers
Expedition food made comfortable. Low effort, grazeable all night, and it keeps hands busy during the honest parts of the conversation.
Skillet apple crumble with vanilla ice cream
The post-descent reward. Warm, humble, a little indulgent, and it scoops straight from the pan onto the coffee table.
To sip
Spiced maple cider (served warm, non-alcoholic)
No alcohol
Cinnamon, star anise, a spoon of maple, kept hot on the stove so people refill themselves and linger.
Hot toddy bar with bourbon, honey, lemon, and a jar of cloves
The classic after-cold-day drink. Set it out and let guests build their own so you are never playing bartender.
Thermos of strong coffee with cardamom
No alcohol
Because every alpine start begins this way, and because someone always wants the second half of the night to be coffee instead.
Warm acoustic guitar, patient piano, and wide-open ambient swells. Mountain-documentary quiet, kept low enough that nobody raises their voice.
Tap a track to play it. Full songs play when you're signed into Spotify.
Run of show
7:00
Doors, socks, and soup
Slippers encouraged. Stew on the stove, cider already warm, snack board out so nobody has to wait to eat.
7:20
Warm-up round
Go around with the two warm-up questions. No hands raised, no order, just let it wander.
7:45
Settle in with the theme questions
Move to the couch with bowls in hand. Pull two or three theme cards, not all four, and let the good one run long.
8:20
Crumble break
Bring out the skillet and ice cream. Switch the toddy bar on. Let the conversation go sideways for ten minutes on purpose.
8:40
The two deep ones
Lights lower, music quieter. Ask the deep questions and genuinely let silences sit before anyone answers.
9:10
Scorecards, trivia, and leftovers
Fill out scorecards together, run the trivia as a friendly group effort, send everyone home with stew in a jar.
Host tips
- Pick four or five questions total, not eight. A cozy night is measured in how long people stay, not how much ground you cover.
- Keep the stew, the cider, and the crumble all in one-pot formats so you are sitting in the circle instead of standing at the stove.
- If someone starts telling a long personal story about fear or a lost friend, let them finish. That is the whole point of this book.
You're invited
Soup, Slippers, and a Few Rules Worth Keeping
Come read Jimmy Chin with us. There will be green chile stew, warm cider, a skillet crumble, and a slow conversation about risk, mentors, and the lives we have quietly chosen. Wear something soft.
Trivia
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1
Jimmy Chin is best known as a photographer and filmmaker in which general subject area?Answer: Climbing, mountaineering, and adventure sports, much of it for National Geographic.
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2
Which documentary co-directed by Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature?Answer: Free Solo.
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3
Free Solo follows which climber on El Capitan in Yosemite?Answer: Alex Honnold.
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4
Chin and Vasarhelyi made an earlier climbing documentary about an expedition to a Himalayan peak known as the Shark's Fin. Which mountain?Answer: Meru.
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5
Chin is a longtime member and athlete of which outdoor athlete collective associated with The North Face?Answer: The North Face Athlete Team.
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6
Which Wyoming mountain town has long been Chin's home base?Answer: Jackson, Wyoming, near the Tetons.
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7
Chin's co-writer on this book, Daniel Duane, is known for writing about which subjects?Answer: Climbing, surfing, and the outdoors, including long-form magazine journalism.
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8
What genre does Rules To Live By fall into?Answer: Memoir, with elements of reflective life-lessons nonfiction.
Bookmarks
Cozy night
Patient Warmth
Go slow. The mountain is not in a hurry either.
Rules To Live By
Cozy night
Quiet Gratitude
Some ropes you tie yourself. Some are handed to you.
Rules To Live By
Cozy night
Soft Landing
Come down carefully. There is soup waiting.
Rules To Live By
Rate the book
Warmth
Honesty
Lines Worth Keeping
Made Me Call Someone
Would Reread By A Fire
One word for how this book left me feeling:
The rule I am actually going to try:
Someone I thought about while reading:
Print pack
- Question cards on kraft stock, tied in a small bundle with twine
- Printed bookmark set (three designs, one per guest to take home)
- Half-page cozy scorecards with a pencil at every seat
- Trivia sheet formatted as a single shared round, not a competition
- Soup jar labels reading 'Leftovers for the descent'
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