Crazy for the Storm

In this fast, engaging tale Norman Ollestad tells about how he survived a mountaintop plane crash as an 11-year-old, a crash that killed the pilot, his father and his father’s girlfriend, and how his relationship with his father, and the skills he had learned under his tutelage, had prepared him for......more

Raising a child this way? Abysmal attitudes. A bunch of irresponsible people who should not have been allowed to touch a child with a seven-foot pole. Beating, recklessly endangering a minor, emotinal trauma - we have it all inflicted on this child. What's even worse is that the author, the grown-up......more

I admire Mr. Ollestad and I cannot imagine what he went through. I don't mean to diminish his story or the insights he gleans and shares with the reader in any way. If I were a surfing or skiing enthusiast, I'm sure I would appreciate the exhaustive attention to detail afforded those sports. I have be......more

Opening Line: “February 19,1979. At seven that morning my dad, his girlfriend Sandra and I took off from Santa Monica Airport headed for the mountains of Big Bear.” Set amid the wild uninhibited surf culture of Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970’s, Crazy For The Storm is a fascinating memoir that was......more

Though not quite as boastful or badly written, this book reminded me a lot of A Million Little Pieces (a book I abhor, and not for any of the reasons Oprah slammed it--please, all nonfiction is, to some degree, untrue, particularly memoir. I'm surprised that more people weren't offended by Frey's at......more