WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 2016 WINNER OF THE 2016 WILLIAM
HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE Surfing only looks like a sport. To
devotees, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a mental
and physical study, a passionate way of life. William Finnegan first
started surfing as a young boy in California and Hawaii. Barbarian Days is
his immersive memoir of a life spent travelling the world chasing waves
through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa and beyond. Finnegan
describes the edgy yet enduring brotherhood forged among the swell of the
surf; and recalling his own apprenticeship to the world's most famous and
challenging waves, he considers the intense relationship formed between
man, board and water. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, a
social history, an extraordinary exploration of one man's gradual mastering
of an exacting and little-understood art. It is a memoir of dangerous
obsession and enchantment.