Barbarian Days

**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.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I was a haole, or white, kid in a primarily Hawaiian school in Honolulu. The other kids made fun of me, and I didn’t have any friends. I was too scared to say anything. #2 I was sent to Kaimuki Intermediate School, a racially segregated school, where I was bullied and had no friends. I was bored in class, and spent most of my time watching the trees outside for wind direction and strength. #3 I was excited to be in Hawaii, and I was surprised by how little surf there was. The waves were small and dark-faced, and the wind offshore. I was worried about the coral reef off the beach. #4 I paddled west along a shallow lagoon, staying close to the shore, for half a mile. The beach houses ended, and the steep, brushy base of Diamond Head itself took their place across the sand. The reef on my left fell away, revealing a wide channel deep water where no waves broke.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 I was a haole, or white, kid in a primarily Hawaiian school in Honolulu. The other kids made fun of me, and I didn’t have any friends. I was too scared to say anything. #2 I was sent to Kaimuki Intermediate School, a racially segregated school, where I was bullied and had no friends. I was bored in class, and spent most of my time watching the trees outside for wind direction and strength. #3 I was excited to be in Hawaii, and I was surprised by how little surf there was. The waves were small and darkfaced, and the wind offshore. I was worried about the coral reef off the beach. #4 I paddled west along a shallow lagoon, staying close to the shore, for half a mile. The beach houses ended, and the steep, brushy base of Diamond Head itself took their place across the sand. The reef on my left fell away, revealing a wide channel deep water where no waves broke.

A weekly review of politics, literature, theology, and art.