Kook, Peter Heller
Kook, Peter Heller
List: $17.99 | Sale: $12.59
Club: $8.99

Kook
What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave

Author: Peter Heller

Narrator: Mike Chamberlain

Unabridged: 10 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/15/2016

Synopsis


With grit, poetry, and humor, Peter Heller, acclaimed author of The Whale Warriors, recounts his remarkable journey of discovery—of surfing, an entirely new challenge; of the ocean's beauty and power; of the strange surf subculture; of love; and, most of all, of how to seek adventure while crafting a meaningful life.

Having resolved to master a big-hollow wave—that is, to go from kook (surfese for beginner) to shredder—in a single year, Heller travels from Southern California down the coast of Mexico in the company of his girlfriend and the eccentric surfers they meet. Exuberant and fearless, Heller explores the technique and science of surfing the secrets of its culture, and the environmental ravages to the stunning coastline he visits.

As Heller plumbs the working of his own heart and finds joy in both love and surfing, he affords listeners vivid insight into this fascinating world, with all of its perils and pleasures, its absurdity and wonder. Exhilarating, entertaining, and moving, Kook is a love story between a man and his surfboard, a man and his girlfriend, a not-so-old man and the sea.

About Peter Heller

Peter Heller is a seasoned adventure journalist and a senior contributor to Outside magazine. Before tackling Tibet, he kayaked in the footsteps of Hemingway along the Cuban coastline, depicted in his exposé Cuba: A Dry Run. He is also the author of Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River and Set Free in China: Sojourns on the Edge. Peter lives in Denver, where he kayaks daily on a lake 100 yards from his front door.

Reviews

Goodreads review by G.L. on January 19, 2013

Before I bought Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, I read a number of reviews that were less than flattering. Most of those complained that the book is far too heavy-handed on the environmentalist side. I see where those comments came from, but as someone......more

Goodreads review by Mary on August 31, 2010

It is always fun to read a book with your home town involved and I really enjoyed the casual writing of Peter Heller as he describes his initiation into the surfing world. I live in Surf City (now trademarked!), otherwise known as Huntington Beach, CA and where Heller first catches the surfing bug.......more

Goodreads review by Lynne on July 04, 2021

Peter Heller, nearing fifty, becomes obsessed with learning to surf and surfing. He and his fiancée-then-wife, Kim, travel to Mexico for this purpose, which is where most of the story takes place. Reading the reviews, this book is like an inkblot test. Everybody sees something different, and it prob......more

Goodreads review by Katrin on August 12, 2011

My second book about surfing in an week ... This time, the author, a writer in his forties, living in Colorado, discovers surfing and decides to really pursue it for a while, going from being a "kook" (beginner) to big waves in only a few months. He is really ambitious, surfing every day, and eventu......more

Goodreads review by Alex on February 17, 2021

They say when you meet a celeb you are often disappointed, for you find out that Sean Penn is a self-serious artist rather than the lovable stoner Jeff Spicoli. I'd say something similar happened with me and Peter Heller in Kook (though perhaps the reverse of the Penn-Spicoli example). Heller, the a......more

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