The Wave
In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
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4.4 • 234 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this "wonderfully vivid, kinetic narrative" (The New York Times), the bestselling author of Voices in the Ocean captures colossal, ship-swallowing waves, and the surfers and scientists who seek them out.
For legendary surfer Laird Hamilton, hundred foot waves represent the ultimate challenge. As Susan Casey travels the globe, hunting these monsters of the ocean with Hamilton’s crew, she witnesses first-hand the life or death stakes, the glory, and the mystery of impossibly mammoth waves. Yet for the scientists who study them, these waves represent something truly scary brewing in the planet’s waters. With inexorable verve, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Casey, O magazine editor-in-chief, travels across the world and into the past to confront the largest waves the oceans have to offer. This dangerous water includes rogue waves south of Africa, storm-born giants near Hawaii, and the biggest wave ever recorded, a 1,740 foot-high wall of wave (taller than one and a third Empire State Buildings) that blasted the Alaska coastline in 1958. Casey follows big-wave surfers in their often suicidal attempts to tackle monsters made of H2O, and also interviews scientists exploring the danger that global warning will bring us more and larger waves. Casey writes compellingly of the threat and beauty of the ocean at its most dangerous. We get vivid historical reconstructions and her firsthand account of being on a jet-ski watching surfers risk their lives. Casey also smoothly translates the science of her subject into engaging prose. This book will fascinate anyone who has even the slightest interest in the oceans that surround us.
Customer Reviews
Well written learned more than I had thiught
The author does a good job of describing the ocean’s power and its effects on oceanic shipping and big wave surfing. I was pleasantly surprised to have learned so much about Laird Hamilton and his surfing group while also getting a sense for what drives these adrenaline-seeking giants of men. The chapter on the ~1700 foot wave in Alaska was amazing.
I only wish.....
I'll never tow surf or catch a monster but this book makes me want to! Dramatic tales of days surfers yearn for alternating with scientific chapters that aid in the understanding of the climatic changes occurring on the planet help you appreciate what a rogue is and can be!! In a word.....terrifying!!
Fantastic
This book is fantastic, I could not put it down. I did not want it to end. Easily the best non fiction book I've read in a long time