I am reading alot lately due to the horrible lack of swell so i need some ideas on some books i could purchase. Has anybody read a really good surf novel or say something far from the surfing world.
I just got done with a really good novel (The Search for Captain Zero) that alot of my friends could relate to in some closely similiar confrontations.
Anyway if anybody has some good books about or not about surfing, i would love to hear a brief description and the title.
Thanks, Ty
It depends on what are you looking for. If you want some freak, try the ol’ Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories (BUHHHH!). Now, if you are searching for some wisdom, I’d suggest A passion for wisdom: A brief history of philosophy, by Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins. It is like to get out the cave and walk until now. A voyage through the human thinking. If you look for some surfing related book, you could read the Michael Peterson’s biography (I haven’t yet). Finally, if you need some distraction and fun, try Calvin and Hobbes. If neither of these help you, try to create another thread in Swaylocks and keep it going! Good luck!
a friend of mine just released his new book about life in europe post-WWII.
if you’re at all interested in this period of world history, this stuff was definitely never covered in any history class at school.
Howzit Formula1, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a 2 book set that you will have a hard time putting down. Another one is Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, I know this one may seem like a kids book, but I took it on a surf trip a few years back and my palapa mate couldn't put it down.Aloha,Kokua
I would recommend both Caught Inside: a surfer’s year on the California coast, by Daniel Duane, and the recent biography of Eddie Aikau (I think it was called Eddie Would Go). Both very good reads…
If you like historical fiction, Patrick O’Brien’s 13 volume series of Aubrey/Maturin books, starting with “Master and Commander” is very good too, in a totally different way (British Navy, cannon battles, spy missions, etc - no surfing!).
DUDE!!! Have you not been watching the weather channel!!! theres s category 3 hurricane moving up the gulf… Word of advice… be out at surfside just past all the houses on last jetty on tuesday morning. about 8 - 9 am. you will hit 6 - 7 ft at the end of the jetty and about 12 - 14 foot around 200 yards off shore… but DONT GO THAT FAR OUT too dangerous on account of murkey watter and slamming into huge rocks and the jetty and sand sharks
also, keep an eye on the weather channel to make sure strom doesnt change course. I wouldnt want you to make the 1 hour drive for nothing and be angry at me. but its fairly likely that it will stay course… unless florida is just itching to get slammed again for the umpteenth time.
Required reading. The Prophet by Gibran. Shakespeare…all of it. Renaissance, Victorian, and Modern poetry. All science fiction, including Mary Shelly, Poe, and everybody since but especially all the old LeGuinn, Bradbury, Ellison, Norton, Heinlein, Dick, Niven, Herbert. The book Everything I Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten. The myth Iron John. The superhero comics (pick a hero). All religious texts, e.g. the Old and New Testaments, the Koran, etc. The I Ching (use the coins, not the straws). Historical novels like Hawaii. Biographies on people you would like to meet from your culture’s history. The Life of Woody Guthrie. The Tarzan books. Moby Dick (at least twice). The entire James Bond series by Ian Fleming. The Doc Savage books. Any books you can find that feature three-legged dogs. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. The book Einstein, The Life and Times. War and Peace. All the Dickens novels. The Dictionary, by blind divining. Any novel about going to sea, such as Captains Courageous. The Life of Nana Veary. The World According to Garp. No Exit by Sartre. Siddhartha by Hesse. Louis L’Amour books.
Getting the idea? Raid the library. Try everything. Ruin your eyes and expand your vision.
Or, alternatively, go and talk to the very old man standing on the corner in your neighborhood.
The surf should be back up by the time you finish.
Everything you read will relate to surfing. Trust me.
He opened the door to reading. Give him the works.
anyone around here ever read “Catch A Fire”??
I am the lucky owner of a 1967 book by John SEVERSON called “Great Surfing” that I have been reading again and again for years. It contains a number of surfing-related short stories that range from informative (“The Days of Great Boards and Real Watermen” by Sam REID) to dramatic fiction (“The Letters” by Bev MORGAN, “The Ultimate Journey” by Bruce BONNEY) with some hilarious ones in between (“The Seagull and the Prince” by Brian J. REED, “the Makaha Magic Trunks” by Ron HAWORTH). And even a rather prophetic one by Fred VAN DYKE and Patrick MAC NULTY, “After the Last Wave”.
Granted, I’m afraid the book is a collector now. But if anybody is interested, I might make copies. Just ask.
Some libraries have it.
http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/deaa661e0defbec4.html
http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/deaa661e0defbec4.html In Texas, for Formula1
THe life of Pi – must read for anyone, really beautiful perspective on religion, and you wont be able to put it down.
Galapagos (Vonnegut) – really sick story, anything by vonnegut is always good though.
Gunther Grass – really cool writer who wrote three fables all connected to each other, the first one is “the tin drum”. he has a funny witty sense of humor and the tin drum is alot like catch 22 in that aspect. plus he won the nobel prize in literature.
John Muir – anyhting by this guy if you like wilderness. he could write beautifully, i havent been to alaska but i can imagine exactly what it must look like through muirs words.
‘Monkey wrench gang’ and ‘Heyduke lives’ (abbey) – another good writer if you like wilderness, heyduke lives is the sequel to monkey wrench gang. read them and you wont be able to put either down. tons of laughs in both of them.
if you want to read a very depressing book, read ‘hemmingway on war’ its a huge collection of very short stories that will forever ruin any visions you had of war being a civilized undertaking. dreaming up sickening scenes is one thing, but after reading these stories of actual attrocities by someone who experienced it first hand is very disturbing. i cant read any mroe then two or three at a time or it gets too depressing.
Making a distinction - “In Search of Captain Zero” is not a novel; it’s a true story, and a pretty good one at that.
“Caught Inside” is good, and Daniel Duane wrote a novel a few years after writing it called “Looking For Mo”; it’s about a rock climber and writer who steals his buddy’s climbing stories and uses them for the basis of a book that he’s trying to publish. Read them both, and you’ll wonder how much of “Caught Inside” is true, and how much Duane embellished.
“The Dogs of Winter” by Kem Nunn is a novel about a reclusive big-wave surfer in the Pacific Northwest. Pretty dark stuff, but definitely worth reading.
“Blue Latitudes” by Tony Horwitz is fantastic. Horwitz and his loony travelling partner Roger retrace the voyages of legendary explorer James Cook. Tony tells his own stories about his encounters in the modern Pacific Rim (sometimes hilarious, sometimes very sad) while recounting the life of Cook.
Yes…add Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five to the scifi list. Great movie, too. Surfing the afterlife.
First I want to apoligize to all about my wrong in calling “In Search of Captain Zero” a novel.
Now into what i have read and what i haven’t. I have read so much Poe in my lifetime that you could probably quote him and i would know the page number and book in which you are quoting from. I have read the, under that influece of my younger brother, the entire Harry Potter series and it has in some way hooked my interest to see what JK Rolling can come up with next.
Now the book that i think i will read nest is “A Passion for Wisdom: A Brief History of Philosophy.” I looked it up at my local library and they suprisingly have it. So i am going to pick it up tomm and have a go at it.
Soulstice, I have a question that needs to be answered. I have read a good many books on the history of Vietnam and WW1 and 2 and would like to know the author and title of the book your friend wrote.
I have one more question. Does anybody have a passion for or has recently read any books related to the dealings of Greek or Roman culture. I read a book that was translated from the original latin to english and that is what sparked my interest with this particular time period.
Thanx, Ty
There’s an old text book, Mythology by Edith Hamilton. Compares Greek, Roman, Viking, mythologies. It gives some insight into the respective cultures. She also wrote the Greek Way, and the Roman Way. All good reads for those interested in the richness of the cultures.
Always glad to meet another Poe fan. Tell me, have you recently seen Lenore?
Hope you get some good surf.
pliny the elder - A selection, Natural History.
if your interested in the ancient greeks this is a cool book, really interesting. i need to go look for them but i have a few names that wrote some really interesting stuff.
another good one as far as non-fiction goes is ‘michelangelo and the pope’s ceiling’ by a writer named king.
I am developing a list that is getting pretty good. Keep’em comming
Thanx, Ty
You can’t go wrong with the 2005 Guinness Book of World Records.
OK, now you all know about my short attention span…
Oh dear… you have hit on my weakness. Give me decent coffee, food of some sort and a supply of books and I will be a happy man. So, a few suggestions…
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy
Daniel Boorstein’s histories of thought and of technology - fascinating bits about Cheng Ho’s Fleet in the latter.
Guns, Germs and Steel- required reading these days
David McCulloughs biographies are good, liked the ones he did of Theodore Rooseveldt and Harry Truman along with his books on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal. Wasn’t crazy about the one on John Adams.
You could do a lot worse than Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples.
Fiction- dammit, Keith beat me to Patrick O’Brian. As you’re another history buff like myself, I’ll add that O’Brian had access to the original Royal Navy archives when he was researching the books. Also the Shaara novels.
Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream
Anything written by Neil Stephenson - the Quicksilver ( his latest) trilogy is kinda neat and an interesting read.
Likewise William Gibson
been on a Dean Koontz kick of late myself, due to the most recent ladyfriend .
And of course White’s The Once and Future King.
And that’s at least in part my summer reading list. They say Bill Gates squirrels away books all year and then takes a month or two a year to read 'em and do very little else. Me, I run a surf shop which ain’t real busy in July, so I have been squirreling away books all year for this. I try to go through a book a day, though that won’t be the rate I get through the Quicksilver trilogy.
Enjoy -
doc…