Jonathan Bennett lived in an old, unheated campervan for fourteen months, and travelled clockwise all round Britain, surfing every beach he could catch a wave.

In this wry and exhilarating coming-of-age story, a prizewinning poet poignantly looks back at his adolescent surfing years. As a disenchanted, unemployed English professor, Thad Ziolkowski decides one day to sneak away from his temp job in Manhattan and catch a wave off a dingy Queens shoreline. In the meager cold waves, he contemplates how he could have possibly become a semidepressed, chain-smoking, aimless man when, for a few shining years of his boyhood, he was invincible. His lapsed love affair with the ocean begins amid the late-sixties counterculture in coastal Florida. After his parents’ divorce, nine-year-old Thad escapes from his difficult family—notably a new brooding and explosive stepfather—by heading for the thrilling, uncharted waters of the local beach. In the embrace of the surf, he is able to stay offshore for years, until his life is upended once again, this time by a double tragedy that deposits him at a crossroads between a life in the waves and a life on land. Lyrical and disarmingly funny, On a Wave is a glorious portrait of youth that reminds readers of Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life and Frank Conroy’s Stop-Time. “A sharp, self-conscious portrait of the artist as a young grommet.” —The New Yorker

Around the Coast in 80 Days is an indispensable guide to the very best of Britain's diverse coastline. Whether you have just an afternoon, a whole day, a free weekend, or a whole week to explore our wonderful country, this book will guide you to 80 of the most interesting, fun and picturesque seaside spots our coast has to offer. Starting at Liverpool, one of the most fashionable tourist destinations in Europe, the book travels clockwise up to Scotland, down the east coast, across the southern shores, up through Wales and back to the northwest of England. It calls in at exciting seaside towns like Blackpool, Brighton and Newquay, and also invites you to explore the more tranquil coastal stretches, such as Balnakeil, Gower Peninsula and the Lizard. Covering nine coastal regions of Britain, chapters provide insights into the history, culture and key features of each place, how to get to there, where to eat – including the best places for fish and chips, and where to stay. Accompanied by beautiful photography and a handy map, and introduced with an entertaining and evocative Foreword by Ian McMillan, the book will delight families, couples and solo explorers of all ages and with all budgets. We all know there's so much more to explore and enjoy in our beautiful country – this book will help you do just that.

Second Surfing World Photo Annual presenting surfing personalities.

In recent years waves have been recorded which are dramatically larger in size. They have the power to flatten oil rigs and sink supertankers; they seem to disobey the laws of physics, swelling when logic shows they should be running out of steam. These rogue waves have attracted an obsessive following of scientists, who seek to understand them, and of extreme surfers, looking to tame them. The author talks to the climatologists trying to unlock the causes of these waves, and looks at the danger they will wreak on our planet. Guided by Laird Hamilton, big-wave-rider extraordinaire, the author exposes a world of obsession and dare-devil surfing, a world filled with eccentric wave-hunters - both scientists and surfers - who are universally convinced that bigger waves are coming. And that they can ride them.

Sailing across time and geography, the imaginary and the real, The Sea chronicles the many physical and cultural meanings of the watery abyss. This book explores the sea and its meanings from ancient myths to contemporary geopolitics, from Atlantis to the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Richard Hamblyn traces a cultural and geographical journey from estuary to abyss, beginning with the topographies of the shoreline and ending with the likely futures of our maritime environments. Along the way he considers the sea as a site of work and endurance; of story and song; of language, leisure, and longing. By meditating on the sea as both a physical and a cultural presence, the book shines new light on the sea and its indelible place in the human imagination.