She Surf

Join the celebration of the diverse, vibrant, and engaged community of women riding and making waves around the globe. While surfing is usually seen as a male domain, women have long been nurturing their own water stories and claiming their rightful place in the world of this sport. She Surf hails the females, past and present, who are engaged in expanding the art of surfing. Through exclusive interviews and evocative imagery, the book travels from the iconic waves of Hawaii to remote locations in Morocco. Learn about the forgotten stories of Polynesian surfing princesses, pioneering wave riders from the 1960s, and the contemporary movers and shakers shaping the scene. This book is an exciting reflection on what it means to be a female surfer and what it means to be moved to action by the beauty of the sea.

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.

Wave Woman is the untold story of an adventurer whose zest for life and learning kept her alive for ninety-eight years. Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt was the granddaughter of Mormon pioneers who, after spending an active and athletic childhood in Salt Lake City, moved to Santa Monica with her family and enrolled at USC to study dental hygiene. Betty went on to elope with a man she hardly knew, and to have two daughters. In middle age, Betty finally followed her dream of living near the ocean; she moved to Hawaii and, at age forty-one, took up surfing. She lived and surfed at Waikiki during the golden years of the mid-1950s and was a pioneer surfer at Makaha Beach. She was competitive in early big-wave surfing championships and was among the first women to compete in Lima, Peru, where she won first place. Betty was an Olympic hopeful, a pilot, a mother, a sculptor, a jeweler, a builder, a fisherwoman, an ATV rider, and a potter who lived life her way, dealing with adversity and heartache on her own stoic terms. A love letter from a daughter to her larger-than-life mother, Wave Woman will speak to any woman searching for self-confidence, fulfillment, and happiness.

Discover how the freedom of sucking at something can help you build resilience, embrace imperfection, and find joy in the pursuit rather than the goal. What if the secret to resilience and joy is the one thing we’ve been taught to avoid? When was the last time you tried something new? Something that won’t make you more productive, make you more money, or check anything off your to-do list? Something you’re really, really bad at, but that brought you joy? Odds are, not recently. As a sh*tty surfer and all-around-imperfect human Karen Rinaldi explains in this eye-opening book, we live in a time of aspirational psychoses. We humblebrag about how hard we work and we prioritize productivity over play. Even kids don’t play for the sake of playing anymore: they’re building blocks to build the ideal college application. But we’re all being had. We’re told to be the best or nothing at all. We’re trapped in an epic and farcical quest for perfection. We judge others on stuff we can’t even begin to master, and it’s all making us more anxious and depressed than ever. Worse, we’re not improving on what really matters. This book provides the antidote. (It’s Great to) Suck at Something reveals that the key to a richer, more fulfilling life is finding something to suck at. Drawing on her personal experience sucking at surfing (a sport she’s dedicated nearly two decades of her life to doing without ever coming close to getting good at it) along with philosophy, literature, and the latest science, Rinaldi explores sucking as a lost art we must reclaim for our health and our sanity and helps us find the way to our own riotous suck-ability. She draws from sources as diverse as Anthony Bourdain and surfing luminary Jaimal Yogis, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Jean-Paul Sartre, among many others, and explains the marvelous things that happen to our mammalian brains when we try something new, all to discover what she’s learned firsthand: it is great to suck at something. Sucking at something rewires our brain in positive ways, helps us cultivate grit, and inspires us to find joy in the process, without obsessing about the destination. Ultimately, it gives you freedom: the freedom to suck without caring is revelatory. Coupling honest, hilarious storytelling with unexpected insights, (It’s Great to) Suck at Something is an invitation to embrace our shortcomings as the very best of who we are and to open ourselves up to adventure, where we may not find what we thought we were looking for, but something way more important.

A captivating look at two centuries of surfing—"the Sport of Queens"—from Native Hawaiian royalty to the breakout style and jaw-dropping feats on the waves today. Few subjects in the world of sports and or the outdoors is more timely or compelling than women’s surfing. From smart, strong, fearless women shattering records on 80-foot waves to professional athletes fighting for equal pay and a more fair and just playing field, these amazing, wave-riding warriors provide an inspirational and aspirational cast of powerful role models for women (and men) across all backgrounds and generations. Over the past two-hundred years, and especially the past five decades, the surfing lifestyle have become the envy of people around the world. The perception of sun, sand, surf, strong young women and their inimitable style, has created a booming lifestyle and sports industry—and the sport that is set to make it’s Olympic exhibition debut in Tokyo 2021. A massive shift from when colonizers tried to extinguish all traces of Native Hawaiian surfing and its sacred culture. What is it about the surfing that intrigues people of all ages, from all corners of the world? The beaches and idyllic locations? The unique style and mystique that surfers project? These women, on the beach and riding giant waves, or in the media, have made their mark on not just their sport, but our wider culture. Women on Waves is filled with phenomenal athletic performance, breakthrough female achievements, and plenty of inspiration and fun to see us through until the time when we can all hit the surf once more! Spanning a millennia, From Hawaii to Malibu, New York to Australia, South Africa to the South Pacific and beyond, Jim Kempton presents a fascinating new narrative that will captivate anyone who loves sports and the outdoors.

Cheri Hamilton, Bethany’s mom, tells the inspiring story of the Hamilton Family. Bethany Hamilton’s incredible story of surviving and thriving in the wake of a shark attack, told in her best-selling autobiography Soul Surfer, has sold more than 1.5 million copies. Yet her family’s adventures started long before Bethany lost her arm and became a pro surfer. Now Cheri Hamilton, Bethany’s mom, tells the inspiring story of the Hamilton Family. Raising a Soul Surfer invites readers to journey with the Hamiltons to the lush islands of Hawaii, to experience a worldwide news event, Bethany’s shark attack, from her parents’ point of view. Witness the many small steps of faith and how God stepped in and gave them a higher purpose.

From the author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go To Hell, a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction One of Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament's Top 10 of 2018 It's no surprise that surfers like to party. The 1960-70s image, bolstered by Tom Wolfe and Big Wednesday, was one of mild outlaws--tanned boys refusing to grow up, spending their days drinking beer and smoking joints on the beach in between mindless hours in the water. But in the 1980s, as surf brands morphed into multibillion-dollar companies, the derelict portrait began to harm business. The external surf image became Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, beacons of health, vitality, bravery, and clean-living. Internally, though, surfing had moved on from booze and weed to its heart's true home, its soul's twin flame: cocaine. The rise of cocaine in American popular culture as the choice of rich, white elites was matched, then quadrupled, within surf culture. The parties got wilder, the nights stretched longer, the stories became more ridiculously unbelievable. And there has been no stopping, no dip in passion. It is a forbidden love, and few, if any, outside the surf world know about this particular rhapsody. Drug use is kept very well-hidden, even from insiders, but evidence of its psychosis rears its head from time to time in the form of overdoses, bar fights, surf contests, murders, and cover-ups. Cocaine + Surfing draws back the curtain on a hopped-up, sometimes-sexy, sometimes-deadly relationship and uses cocaine as the vehicle to expose and explain the utterly absurd surf industry to outsiders.