Surfing Australia: A Complete History of Surfboard Riding in Australia

(Paperback, Flexibind)

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The definitive guide to Australia's surfing history, published in conjunction with Surfing Australia.

Australian surf culture is over a century old, and it still hasn't grown up. From its roots as an illegal pastime to its current incarnation as a professional sport, surfing's enduring appeal has always been the carefree, quintessentially Australian lifestyle that goes with it. Australian surf culture has always had competing impulses of chaos and order. For every Boot Hill Gang there is a Surf Life Saving Association; for every tragic drug disqualification, a World Title winner. From Tommy Tanna, Alick Wickham and Freddie Williams's pioneering surf lifestyles to the hedonism of 1950s beach culture, the Coolangatta Kids of the 1970s, to the eventual professionalised machine that surfing in Australia has now become, this is the complete, no-holds-barred history of both sides of the story.

With forewords by Mark Richards and Layne Beachley, Australia's World Champion surfers, this book is the definitive history of surfing in Australia.

Author Bio

Phil Jarratt has worked in surf publishing for forty years and is regarded as one of the sports foremost authorities. A former editor of Tracks and Australian Surfers Journal, and associate editor of Surfer, his books on surfing include The Wave Game (1977), Mr Sunset (1997), The Mountain & The Wave (2006), Kelly Slater: For The Love (2008), Salts and Suits (2010), Australias Hottest 100 Surfing Legends (2011) and Life of Brine (2017). He has received the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame Media Award three times, and was shortlisted for the Blake Dawson Prize for business literature for Salts and Suits in 2010. He lives in Noosa Heads, Queensland, and surfs every day there are waves.