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Kook
- What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Release date: 03-15-16
- Language: English
- Publisher: Tantor Audio
- Whispersync for Voice-ready
Regular price: $27.99
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People go to Huntington Beach in search of the endless parties, the ultimate highs, and the perfect waves. Ike Tucker has come to look for his missing sister and for the three men who may have murdered her. In that place of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blonds, Ike's search takes him on a journey through a twisted world of crazed Vietnam vets, sadistic surfers, drug dealers, and mysterious seducers. He looks into the shadows and finds parties that drift toward pointless violence, joyless vacations, and highs you may never come down from...
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The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once declared "the ideal limit of aquatic sports...is waterskiing". The avid surfer and lavishly credentialed academic philosopher Aaron James vigorously disagrees, and in Surfing with Sartre he intends to expound the thinking surfer's view of the matter, in the process elucidating such philosophical categories as freedom, being, phenomenology, morality, epistemology, and even the emerging values of what he terms "leisure capitalism".
Publisher's Summary
With grit, poetry, and humor, Peter Heller, acclaimed author of The Whale Warriors, recounts his remarkable journey of discovery - of surfing, an entirely new challenge; of the ocean's beauty and power; of the strange surf subculture; of love; and, most of all, of how to seek adventure while crafting a meaningful life.
Having resolved to master a big - hollow wave - that is, to go from kook (surfese for beginner) to shredder-in a single year, Heller travels from Southern California down the coast of Mexico in the company of his girlfriend and the eccentric surfers they meet. Exuberant and fearless, Heller explores the technique and science of surfing the secrets of its culture, and the environmental ravages to the stunning coastline he visits.
As Heller plumbs the working of his own heart and finds joy in both love and surfing, he affords listeners vivid insight into this fascinating world, with all of its perils and pleasures, its absurdity and wonder. Exhilarating, entertaining, and moving, Kook is a love story between a man and his surfboard, a man and his girlfriend, a not-so-old man and the sea.
Critic Reviews
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Average Customer Ratings
Overall
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4 out of 5 stars
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- Jimmy P
- 12-14-17
Narrator....
Narrator has kook voice. Midwest accent made story sound ignorant, not a growth learning story
No, save you money
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- michael wakeman
- 10-06-17
Great book, makes you want to paddle out
really liked it some passages were a bit too drawn out. sections on the enviroment, wales, japan for example.
but the story on a whole is great.
really wjat you meed whem you camt get out and surf, or are just startimg out.
also good lessons on patience and love, life.
good book.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 07-08-17
Useful but long winded and hard to believe
found it useful for beginner surfing tips, got a little tired of the dramaticizing...... too much waxing poetic, not enough waxing boards. lots of repetive themes and statements on environmentalism. personally would have preferred a more straightforward account.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Mark B.
- 01-04-17
Call it Average
As a book, there’s not that much info on surfing, it is not a book of surf tips. It also is not a “road trip” book centered around surfing, like Captain Zero. It also is not at all insightful about relationships (the author travels with his girlfriend/wife). While I really liked the author’s book Dog Stars, which was powerful and not entirely predictable, this book could have been condensed down into a long magazine article. Call it average because it was still interesting, especially for anyone who surfs.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- AmazonianJ
- 09-30-16
Disappointing
If you'd like to listen to a good book on surfing check out William Finnegan's "barbarian days: a surfing life" because this book is simply not worth your time. Its uninspiring tone and stereotypical oversimplification of the sport of kings was disappointing.