When most Americans think of surfing, they often envision waves off the coasts of California, Hawai'i, or even New Jersey. What few know is that the South has its own surf culture. To fully explore this unsung surfing world, Steve Estes undertook a journey that stretched more than 2,300 miles, traveling from the coast of Texas to Ocean City, Maryland. Along the way he interviewed and surfed alongside dozens of people—wealthy and poor, men and women, Black and white—all of whom opened up about their lives, how they saw themselves, and what the sport means to them. They also talked about race, class, the environment, and how surfing has shaped their identities. The cast includes a retired Mississippi riverboat captain and alligator hunter who was one of the first to surf the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, a Pensacola sheet-metal worker who ran the China Beach Surf Club while he was stationed in Vietnam, and a Daytona Beach swimsuit model who shot the curl in the 1966 World Surfing Championships before circumnavigating the globe in search of waves and adventure. From these varied and surprising stories emerge a complex, sometimes troubling, but nevertheless beautiful picture of the modern South and its people.

A follow-up to the classic "Surfing in South Africa", this is a new book, completely revised and updated. Written by Spike (Steve Pike), founder of the cult surfing website Wavescape.co.za, it comprises chapters on history, big waves, spots, culture, travel, oceanography, sharks (including a timeline of shark attacks) and a hilarious 'Surfrican' slang glossary. The book is illustrated with 180 graphics, cartoons and photographs. You will find quirky descriptions of surf spots along almost 3,000 km of coast (watch out for the razor-toothed tortoise), a photo essay of surfing personalities by acclaimed photographer Harry de Zitter, as well as colourful journalism from top writers covering subjects connected to the surfing lifestyle. The full-colour book, which is 110 pages bigger than the previous book, is an indispensable resource. Images come from top South African photographers, such as Barry Tuck, Tom Peschak, Michael Dei-Cont, Andy Mason, Lance Slabbert, Brenton Geach, and Pierre Marqua. The contributors of words added spice to an eclectic mix of culture and science. An original piece by Paul Botha forms the backbone to a much-expanded history chapter. Tom Peschak adds gravitas to issues around sharks and conservation. The brave life of John Whitmore is poignantly remembered by Tony Heard. Ross Frylinck gives gritty insights into the forlorn splendour of the Diamond Coast. Tongue in cheek, Gideon Malherbe uncovers our surfing addiction. Henri du Plessis provides a profile of a committed exponent of that addiction. Tony Weaver eloquently tackles the challenge of sharing the sea with sharks. Ben Trovato romps through issues around surfing evolution and lifeguards in skimpy Speedos.

Surfing, unlike many sports, requires no teams, rules, regulations, scores, or stadiums full of spectators. Surfing instead encapsulates personal triumph, in which the individual measures the growth and limits of his or her own capabilities while riding the face of a wave. Initially published in 1963, this first ever guidebook to California surfing remains a classic that embodies the essence of SoCal surfing during the Golden Years. In addition to understanding the anatomy of the coastline, get the skinny on private vs. public beaches, weather and wind conditions, water temperature, swell classifications, sea life, and the history of surfing. Accented with over 100 aerial photos, action shots, and maps, Stern and Cleary's witty guide provides precise descriptions of the entire southern coast and essentially everything you need to know before hitting the waves. Although the surfing scene has changed, Surfing Guide to Southern California remains highly relevant for surfers of today and provides a dose of nostalgia for surfers of yesterday.

This book offers a lively and well-researched visual history of Florida surfing--its origins, its people and personalities, its innovations, its deep influence on the sport's international reach.

In Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life, world champion surfer Shaun Tomson shares the life lessons he's gathered from decades of surfing-from his boyhood adventures in South Africa to the world tour in the late 1970s to the business world today. For Tomson, surfing is a hobby, a sport, a religion, an obsession and more-it is a way of life. Tomson's life lessons have guided his career to the top of both professional competition and the world of business. Now, he shares these powerful lessons, born on the world's best swells, with all people-including those who might never step on a surfboard. These lessons are born of the collective wisdom of the surf community and are a powerful source of inspiration in the face of extraordinary challenges of every day life.

Surfing today evokes many things: thundering waves, warm beaches, bikinis and lifeguards, and carefree pleasure. But is the story of surfing really as simple as popular culture suggests? In this first international political history of the sport, Scott Laderman shows that while wave riding is indeed capable of stimulating tremendous pleasure, its globalization went hand in hand with the blood and repression of the long twentieth century. Emerging as an imperial instrument in post-annexation Hawaii, spawning a form of tourism that conquered the littoral Third World, tracing the struggle against South African apartheid, and employed as a diplomatic weapon in America's Cold War arsenal, the saga of modern surfing is only partially captured by Gidget, the Beach Boys, and the film Blue Crush. From nineteenth-century American empire-building in the Pacific to the low-wage labor of the surf industry today, Laderman argues that surfing in fact closely mirrored American foreign relations. Yet despite its less-than-golden past, the sport continues to captivate people worldwide. Whether in El Salvador or Indonesia or points between, the modern history of this cherished pastime is hardly an uncomplicated story of beachside bliss. Sometimes messy, occasionally contentious, but never dull, surfing offers us a whole new way of viewing our globalized world.

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List “Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times Magazine Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

Discover the untold story of African surf culture in this glorious and colorful collection of profiles, essays, photographs, and illustrations. AFROSURF is the first book to capture and celebrate the surfing culture of Africa. This unprecedented collection is compiled by Mami Wata, a Cape Town surf company that fiercely believes in the power of African surf. Mami Wata brings together its co-founder Selema Masekela and some of Africa's finest photographers, thinkers, writers, and surfers to explore the unique culture of eighteen coastal countries, from Morocco to Somalia, Mozambique, South Africa, and beyond. Packed with over fifty essays, AFROSURF features surfer and skater profiles, thought pieces, poems, photos, illustrations, ephemera, recipes, and a mini comic, all wrapped in an astounding design that captures the diversity and character of Africa. A creative force of good in their continent, Mami Wata sources and manufactures all their wares in Africa and works with communities to strengthen local economies through surf tourism. With this mission in mind, Mami Wata is donating 100% of their proceeds to support two African surf therapy organizations, Waves for Change and Surfers Not Street Children.

Yvon Chouinard-legendary climber, businessman, environmentalist, and founder of Patagonia, Inc.-shares the persistence and courage that have gone into being head of one of the most respected and environmentally responsible companies on earth. From his youth as the son of a French Canadian blacksmith to the thrilling, ambitious climbing expeditions that inspired his innovative designs for the sport's equipment, Let My People Go Surfing is the story of a man who brought doing good and having grand adventures into the heart of his business life-a book that will deeply affect entrepreneurs and outdoor enthusiasts alike. A newly revised edition of Let My People Go Surfing is available now. From the Trade Paperback edition.

For surfers and non-surfers, Surfing Down South offers a unique insight into Australia's surfing counterculture and a unique time in Australia's history. With a Foreword by legendary surfer Taj Burrow, the book covers the early days of surfing in Yallingup and Margaret River and records first-hand stories of those who experienced it. A research-heavy book, published by Margaret River Press and written by Sue Lyn Aldrian-Moyle (Chefs of the Margaret River Region), the book has been in production for two years, as stories and photos were collated from the baby-boomer surfers who surfed in Yallingup and Margaret River in the 50s and 60s. The book follows the often larrikin behaviour of young surfers who share riveting and humourous anecdotes of their antics and adventures: fisticuffs at Caves House, aerial acrobatics with local farmers, draft dodging during the Vietnam War, drug smuggling, setting up shaping businesses in settler's cottages, the organization of the first surfing competitions and building alternative style homes and businesses. Their recollections of surfing in WA during their youth are revealed as trailblazing and controversial, as the book steps back in time to the days before Landcruisers and when bear suits were worn as wet-suits, when surfers listened to Jazz and drove old Holdens and Volkswagens along dusty tracks and when farmers locked up their daughters when the surfers were in town. Archival vintage photographs in the book capture pivotal classic moments of surfing's history. Photographs by legendary surf photographers Ric Chan, John Witzig and John Ogden sit alongside engaging narratives from pioneering surfers such as George Simpson, Ian Cairns, and Rob Conneeley. This 'first' surfing book from young publishers, Margaret River Press has captured the era and location beautifully. "I'm stoked to see that the huge range of antics and anecdotes compiled by Sue-Lyn in this historic book about surfing in the Margaret River Region are now preserved for all to enjoy and to remind us of a very precious era." Taj Burrow