A stunning memoir of growing up in America as the child of would-be socialist revolutionaries during the twilight of Communism.

BONUS: This edition contains a When Skateboards Will Be Free discussion guide. “The revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my father will lead it.” With a profound gift for capturing the absurd in life, and a deadpan wisdom that comes from surviving a surreal childhood in the Socialist Workers Party, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh has crafted an unsentimental, funny, heartbreaking memoir. Saïd’s Iranian-born father and American Jewish mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the workers’ revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist society. Pinballing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries he’s taught to despise, Said waits for the revolution that never, ever arrives. “Soon,” his mother assures him, while his long-absent father quixotically runs as a socialist candidate for president in an Iran about to fall under the ayatollahs. Then comes the hostage crisis. The uproar that follows is the first time Saïd hears the word “Iran” in school. There he is suddenly forced to confront the combustible stew of his identity: as an American, an Iranian, a Jew, a socialist... and a middle-school kid who loves football and video games. Poised perfectly between tragedy and farce, here is a story by a brilliant young writer struggling to break away from the powerful mythologies of his upbringing and create a life—and a voice—of his own. Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’ s memoir is unforgettable.

"An unnamed American city feeling the effects of a war waged far away and suffering from bad weather is the backdrop for this startling work of fiction. The protagonists are aimless young men going from one blue collar job to the next, or in a few cases, aspiring to middle management. Their everyday struggles--with women, with the morning commute, with a series of cruel bosses--are somehow transformed into storytelling that is both universally resonant and wonderfully uncanny. That is the unsettling, funny, and ultimately heartfelt originality of Saïd Sayrafiezadeh's short fiction, to be at home in a world not quite our own but with many, many lessons to offer us"--

Finalist for the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction Longlisted for the 2022 Story Prize A New York Times Editors' Choice pick One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021 Stories that capture our times by “a young author who has already established himself as a unique American voice” (Elle). Saïd Sayrafiezadeh has been hailed by Philip Gourevitch as "a masterful storyteller working from deep in the American grain." His new collection of stories—some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, the Paris Review, and the Best American Short Stories—is set in a contemporary America full of the kind of emotionally bruised characters familiar to readers of Denis Johnson and George Saunders. These are people contending with internal struggles—a son’s fractured relationship with his father, the death of a mother, the loss of a job, drug addiction—even as they are battered by larger, often invisible, economic, political, and racial forces of American society. Searing, intimate, often slyly funny, and always marked by a deep imaginative sympathy, American Estrangement is a testament to our addled times. It will cement Sayrafiezadeh’s reputation as one of the essential twenty-first-century American writers.

They ripped up the slopes in Rhinos Who Snowboard and rode some tasty waves in Rhinos Who Surf and now these adorably extreme rhinos take to the streets for a day of skateboarding fun. They grind some curbs, nab cool railsides, and pop an ollie or two. Complete with a glossary of sidewalk slang, children and skate rats of all ages will delight at the newest rhino adventure.

For more than twenty years, Tony Hawks has been mistaken for Tony Hawk, the American skateboarder. Even though it is abundantly clear on his website that he is an English comedian and author, people still write to him asking the best way to do a kickflip or land a melon. One mischievous day he started writing back in a pompous tone, goading his correspondents for their spelling mistakes and poor grammar, while offering bogus or downright silly advice on how to improve their skateboarding. Featuring entries on parents' pain, disappointment, underachievers, Quorn and the Vatican, this is his A to Z guide to the world of skateboarding, as seen through the eyes of someone who knows absolutely nothing about it.

The skateboard decks documented in this special collection are immaculately photographed and laid-out for maximum graphic glory. In "The Bible", the visuals take center stage, but the fascinating vignettes and recollections provided by an A-list of skateboarding personalities from Tony Hawk to Mike Vallely, Mark Gonzales to Stacy Peralta bring context to the aesthetic mayhem. The board graphics within The Disposable Skateboard Bible are broken down by decade: (beginning in 1960) documenting some of the earliest deck designs; through the 70s and the game-changing advent of urethane wheels; the 80s with its ups and downs, big decks and mass-market popularity; finally, the graphic chaos of the 90s through the turn of the millennium. This book is a blue chip, must-have reference for any graphics library.

Matty Lyon's skateboard tricks are even more impressive since he's blind.

Every culture has a creation myth, and skateboarding is no different. The Ollie forged a new identity for skateboarding after its invention in the 1970s, and it lies at the root of nearly every significant move in street skating today. This groundbreaking no-handed aerial has also affected the evolution of surfing and snowboarding, and has left a permanent impression upon popular culture and language. This, then, is the story of the Ollie, the history and technology that set the stage for its creation, the pioneers who made it happen, and the skaters who used it to start a revolution.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR • Southwest Review • Electric Literature Perfect for fans of Barbarian Days, this memoir in essays follows one man's decade-long quest to uncover the hidden meaning of skateboarding, and explores how this search led unexpectedly to insights on marriage, love, loss, American invention, and growing old. In January 2012, creative writing professor and novelist Kyle Beachy published one of his first essays on skate culture, an exploration of how Nike’s corporate strategy successfully gutted the once-mighty independent skate shoe market. Beachy has since established himself as skate culture's freshest, most illuminating, at times most controversial voice, writing candidly about the increasingly popular and fast-changing pastime he first picked up as a young boy and has continued to practice well into adulthood. What is skateboarding? What does it mean to continue skateboarding after the age of forty, four decades after the kickflip was invented? How does one live authentically as an adult while staying true to a passion cemented in childhood? How does skateboarding shape one's understanding of contemporary American life? Of growing old and getting married? Contemplating these questions and more, Beachy offers a deep exploration of a pastime—often overlooked, regularly maligned—whose seeming simplicity conceals universal truths. THE MOST FUN THING is both a rich account of a hobby and a collection of the lessons skateboarding has taught Beachy—and what it continues to teach him as he strugglesto find space for it as an adult, a professor, and a husband.