Five inspirational wave-riding memoirs for International Surfing Day
Here are five books to inspire your next sur trip, writes Roger Cox
This Saturday, 20 June, is International Surfing Day – the annual celebration of all things surf. Given that many people associate wave-riding with warm, sunny weather, the summertime date makes sense. For surfers here in the North Atlantic, however, it coincides with the most inconsistent surf of the entire year. Still, never mind, if you can’t actually get out and catch a wave on the big day there’s nothing to stop you getting inspired, so here are five books to help keep the stoke alive through the summer doldrums...
1) Barbarian Days by William Finnegan Could this be the greatest surf book ever written? Very possibly. When I reviewed it for The Scotsman back in 2015 I described it as “a brilliant exploration of the Peter Pan complex that afflicts many extreme sports obsessives, and a brave, honest account of what happens when the demands of the quest (in this case, the quest for perfect surf) start to conflict with the demands of the real world.” All of which is true. But what I didn’t really appreciate at the time, but do now, is the effortless way in which Finnegan’s writing draws you in and transports you to the world he’s describing, whether that’s his early days as a tentative teenager, new to Hawaii and carefully negotiating the complexities of the pecking order at his local break, or his utter joy, later in life, at finding dream-like waves at Jardim do Mar in Madeira: “A set rolled through, shining and roaring in the low winter afternoon sun, and my throat clogged with emotion – some nameless mess of joy, fear, love, lust, gratitude.” If this immersive, addictive record of a watery life well lived doesn’t make you yearn for the coast, stop reading now, because nothing else will.
2) Caught Inside by Daniel Duane Fun fact: in his 1996 memoir Caught Inside, when Dan Duane references “a beautifully written two-part article on surfing at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach” he’s enjoyed in The New Yorker, he’s almost certainly referring to a 1992 piece, Playing Doc’s Games, penned by William Finnegan (see above). Anyhoo, whereas many autobiographical surf books tend to involve much journeying to far-flung destinations in search of the perfect wave, part of what makes Duane’s book so successful is his focus on a relatively concentrated stretch of California coastline. Dropping out of the rat race in San Francisco he moves to the surf town of Santa Cruz, not, as he explains in the first chapter, because he has any illusions about becoming a particularly brilliant surfer, but because of a “need to be in the clear, alive water of my California’s Pacific, on a real, honest-to-God surfboard, on a daily basis.” His account of his time there is gritty and honest – he doesn’t shy away from describing the craziness of California surf crowds, or the way they make him a little crazy at times too. But that just makes the rare moments of transcendence all the more enjoyable – for him and for us.
3) Riding the Magic Carpet by Tom Anderson “I’ll never forget sitting there, still only a boy, watching Curren’s first ride at J-Bay on the big screen in the function room of a Porthcawl pub.” This is the formative experience that sparks an all-consuming surf odyssey for Tom Anderson. Apartheid is over, and Jeffrey’s Bay, one of the greatest surf spots in the world, is back on the menu for travelling surfers. In 1992, Californian Tom Curren, the greatest surfer of the era, is filmed surfing there with such mind-melting style that Anderson makes a solemn promise to himself: “Thou shalt one day go to J-Bay and surf it, and not only that, thou shalt go once thou art good enough and wise enough to really make the most of it and to MAKE IT COUNT.” Riding the Magic Carpet (2006) is his account of the ten years leading up to the moment when he finally gets to live out that dream – ten years of travelling the world, testing his mettle at more and more serious surf spots until at last he feels ready to take on the wave he saw on TV. Scotland’s own J-Bay, Thurso East, gets a cameo role, as do the lesser-known surf spots of Orkney.
4) Board by David C Flanagan Speaking of Orkney, that’s where Scottish author David C Flanagan sets out to teach himself to surf in his 2015 memoir Board. Or, at least, that’s where his surfing story truly begins, following an ill-fated few days in what sounds like a truly godawful surf school in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. The omens for Flanagan aren’t great to begin with: not only is he fast approaching middle-age when he sets out to learn, but in Orkney’s Bay of Skaill he’s chosen a fickle, rocky and perpetually wind-strafed place to kick off his surfing journey. Still, thanks to his sheer bloody-mindedness he gets there in the end, and he tells his tale with such an engaging, self-deprecating sense of humour that you’ll find yourself cheering him on all the way.
5) Wayward by Chris Burkard He’s now one of the most successful surf photographers on the planet, but once upon a time Chris Burkard was just a 19-year-old wannabe, working a minimum wage job at a newsagents in Pismo Beach, California, with “a vague dream of somehow making a living taking photos.” This very readable 2021 account of how he carved out a niche for himself, via trips to off-the-beaten-track surf destinations like Iceland, Russia, Norway and Japan, is as good an argument for chasing your dreams as you’ll find. Oh, and the photos are pretty decent too.
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