Standup Zone Forum
Stand Up Paddle => SUP General => Topic started by: FRP on February 28, 2017, 08:23:32 PM
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I just started reading "Barbarian Days" and wondered if there are other epic surf books out there. "The Wave" was previously at the top of my list.......well really the only one on my list. Is there anything out there with a spiritual or psychological approach to surfing?
Bob
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Check out anything written by Gerry Lopez who has written and taught a great deal on those topics; a master of surfing and yoga who has spent a lifetime exploring the two and how they can connect.
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Fierce Heart by Stuart Holmes Coleman.
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Gerry Lopez, Surf is where you find it. Poetry.
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What Pono said.
Also a fun book is In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road Paperback –
by Allan Weisbecker
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Eddie Would Go (the story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero by Stuart Holmes Coleman.
It's a good study of Eddie Aikau life with some interesting Hawaiian culture.
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Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave Paperback – July 13, 2010
by Peter Heller (Author)
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Same as Pono Bill
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Surf is where you find it, Lopez
Barbarian Days, Finnegan
Big Juice, John Long/Sam George (essays)
Caught Inside, Daniel Duane
Kook, Heller
Surfers Code, Shaun Tomson
The Wave, Casey
Force of Nature, Hamilton (more like a lifestyle magazine)
Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, Chas Smith
Hound of the Sea, Garrett McNamara
not just surf, Crazy for the Storm, Ollestad
And of course.....Journals from the Edge - Boyum
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I really enjoyed Journals from the Edge written by some scrub,.... ;D
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For something different try
The Gentlemen's Hour
The Dawn Patrol
The Winter of Frankie Machine
by Don Winslow
These are fiction about a surfer/private-eye from Pacific Beach. Winslow is one of my favorite writer. Two other great books by him are Savages and Cartel.
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'Barbarian Days' is tops.
'All For a Few Perfect Waves' by David Rensin, a bio of Miki Dora, is pretty amazing too -- highly recommended. And 'Caught Inside' by Daniel Duane, his memoir of learning to surf as an adult, is a good read.
I second the recommendation for 'Crazy for the Storm.' That one stuck with me: Dads and sons and surfing and disaster. Good stuff.
In fiction, Kem Nunn's 'Dogs of Winter' is hard to beat.
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My top surf story by a long shot:
Playing Doc’s Games by William Finnegan
written in 1992 and published in New Yorker
I think you can grab a copy of it (pdf) here -> http://aspwedge.com/playing-docs-games/
Such a good read.
I also really enjoyed Breath by Tim Winton
https://www.amazon.com/Breath-Novel-Tim-Winton/dp/0312428391
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Also a fun book is In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road Paperback –
by Allan Weisbecker
+1
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Another great one is Good Things Love Water by Chris Ahrens.
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Heap of Bones by Steve Sorensen.
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Another great one is Good Things Love Water by Chris Ahrens.
Yes...I became friends with, and surfed with Chris, when he moved to Humboldt for a period back in the day...
Since then, he's definitely become a respected surf author...
I'd still like to get some of my slides of Humboldt surfing back from him...;-)
He had some great stories...his brother had Ken Bradshaw as a roomie on the North shore right after Ken moved from Texas and started charging Waimea...etc...Bradshaw wasn't exactly a popular guy...but, eventually moved up the pecking order with a few bumps in the road...;-)
http://www.perelandrapublishing.com/works/7-good-things-love-water
http://www.perelandrapublishing.com/
I've read most of what's been mentioned...and, agree with surfafrica about the Doc Renneker story...
surfafrica:
My top surf story by a long shot...
Playing Doc’s Games by William Finnegan
written in 1992 and published in New Yorker
Can't find my copies...I used to loan them out...hope I got it back last time...if not, I hope the story is still being passed around...
Others worthy of mention that haven't been yet, are The History of Surfing: Nat Young and The History of Surfing: Matt Warshaw
http://www.theinertia.com/business-media/history-of-surfing-surf-literature-new-yorker-and-beyond/
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Worthwhile though expensive ($200) and you need a stand to read it--massive. 900 pages. mostly photographs, but the text is excellent.
(http://www.ponostyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/booksurf.JPG)
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My top surf story by a long shot:
Playing Doc’s Games by William Finnegan
written in 1992 and published in New Yorker
I think you can grab a copy of it (pdf) here -> http://aspwedge.com/playing-docs-games/
Such a good read.
I also really enjoyed Breath by Tim Winton
https://www.amazon.com/Breath-Novel-Tim-Winton/dp/0312428391
Thank so much Surfafrica for the link to Playing Doc's Games. Beautiful prose. Comes so very close to capturing the essence of surfing....will definitely reread again and again.......
Bob
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Not exactly surf-related, but has anyone read Peak - it's mentioned quite a bit on Paddlewoo, I was going to grab it at some point.
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Kind of surprised that nobody has mentioned this book yet, maybe because it's not 100% about surfing, but more about the counter culture of the 60's.
"The Pump House Gang", by Tom Wolfe.
The name comes from the sewer pump house that still stands at Windansea beach in La Jolla, and the local surfers that hung out there.
A very fun read, it came out at about the same time as his other hit book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", another great read.
This first pic is of "Murf the surf" all over a surf chick, who had a statue of himself by the shack on the beach, which was later destroyed allegedly by some bikers.
The second is the pump house itself, with an homage to Wolfe on it, the building is still there, but w/o the homage.
The pump house gang evolved into the Mac Meda Destruction Co., there are still some members of them around, I know a few of them, and they still have reunions every now and then. But not like the days gone by when they'd throw big parties at Windansea, which would bring out San Diego's finest in blue (the po-pos), to try to regain order.
A scene in "Riding Giants" where you see guys riding thru the storm drain on a flexy onto the beach, is during a Mac Meda Destruction Co. party.
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This guy is good and deep !
http://peterkreeft.com/topics-more/surfing-stoke.htm
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Great read, took 28 minutes. ;D