Author Robert Goldstein, who wrote “Riding with Reindeer – A Bicycle Odyssey through Finland, Lapland, and Arctic Norway,” will be at Darvill’s Bookstore on Thursday, Aug. 12, at 7 pm to show slides of his trip and autograph copies of his book.

In the summer of 2007, Seattle resident Goldstein flew to Helsinki, Finland, with a suitcase holding the parts of a folding bicycle. Two months later, he wobbled across the last barren headland in Arctic Norway before the road curved down to the Barents Sea.

“It turned out to be an epic,” said Goldstein, who weathered furious storms, a near disastrous accident, and spent a nervous week in eastern Finland wondering if he would be eaten by bears and wolves.

The solitude that he encountered in Lapland – northern Finland and Finnmark (Norway’s arctic province) – was relieved by the reindeer, who gathered by the side of the road to watch him pass.

What led him to consider such a trip?

“I was frustrated with my job and wanted to do something interesting and challenging before I dropped dead from stress,” said Goldstein, who was 52 when he undertook the journey. At the time, he was the chief financial officer of the Seattle Public Library, helping to oversee an ambitious city-wide library building program. After the new downtown library was built, Goldstein decided to make a change. It was time for an adventure.

“I think everyone should go on a personal epic once in a lifetime. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bike trip to the Arctic, but something where you challenge yourself a bit and learn something,” he said.

Goldstein, who began his career as a journalist, currently splits his time between writing and serving as the chief financial officer for the Kitsap Regional Library system near Seattle. His first book, “The Gentleman from Finland – Adventures on the Trans-Siberian Express,” received the 2006 Benjamin Franklin Award for travel writing.