Barbarian Days
A Surfing Life
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Barbarian Days
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Narrated by:
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William Finnegan
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Written by:
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William Finnegan
About this listen
Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016
A deeply rendered self-portrait of a lifelong surfer by the acclaimed New Yorker writer.
Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.
Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter.
Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses - off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the listener in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships annealed in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu even while his closest friend was a Hawaiian surfer. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly - he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay on Maui - is served up with rueful humor. He and a buddy, their knapsacks crammed with reef charts, bushwhack through Polynesia. They discover, while camping on an uninhabited island in Fiji, one of the world's greatest waves.
As Finnegan's travels take him ever farther afield, he becomes an improbable anthropologist: unpicking the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissecting the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, navigating the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying listeners with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.
©2015 William Finnegan (P)2015 Audible, Inc.You may also enjoy...
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What listeners say about Barbarian Days
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Eric Wikjord
- 2022-09-18
Wave chaser … a story and obsession
An eloquently told sorry of a surfer who truly loves waves. It would have been better if a professional reader was used versus the author. However, the choppiness of the edit didn’t detract from the decade’s of first hand knowledge boards and surf culture. I’d listen to it again if another edit was created,
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2019-05-29
An ode to surfing
this is not a surf story
its a story about surfing
remember to live with fear
not in it
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- tyler beatson
- 2024-11-04
The greatest book ever written
The most wonderful book ever penned.
If you love surfing or just amazing tales this is the book you need to really or listen to.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rachel
- 2018-05-07
Gripping and poignant
I am not a surfer but absolutely loved this book. The writing is so eloquent, I felt as though I were almost experiencing the act of surfing, the ocean and the waves. I loved that he transports the reader to places they would never otherwise have access to. I loved his travels and descriptions of the various far flung surf destinations around the world - before they became popular. I felt genuinely sad upon hearing how they had been developed and overrun with tourists, even though I had never been there myself. The final chapters about his physical limitations due to age are particularly poignant and a reminder to enjoy our passions while we can.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Laurie
- 2019-12-23
Tough slugging.
I thought this book would be interesting as I love listening to people’s stories. It was hard to listen to the author narrating this book. He is monotone and boring. The story would have been amazing with a narrator that had some influx from n his voice. I had a hard time relating to the insanity of these surfers but hey I guess it’s a thing. If you can get through it the story is incredible.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Alixis Hassell
- 2021-03-11
Like stories around a campfire
Loved this autobiography. It felt like a good friend was telling me their life stories around a campfire. Such a good listen
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Cj
- 2022-09-23
A journalistic surf love story!
A story that delivers the experiance of being in the ocean, catching waves and the journey to finding the magic they embue. Its written with unique but digestible language and perspective. Even if you don't surf, you will feel like you have, and will want to even more. If you have surfed, you'll appreciate the aptly described experiance and the words he finds to capture the intangible aspects of a wave.
Thank you for sharing your story William🙏
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- matthew haines
- 2022-05-21
Great book.
As a life long surfer myself I can relate to the painful joy that surfing brings. Great book over all. A little slow at times but very interesting to hear his take on surfing,family and friends. He’s lived the life most surfers dream of.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John William Guise
- 2020-06-17
Surprised How Good This Was!
I picked this up as a Daily Deal and read it on Ryan Holiday's recommendation. I know nothing about surfing but I was sucked into the story and Finnegan's life. Pick it up you will be too. Knowing nothing about surfing is probably a benefit for this book.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- KP
- 2019-09-19
I came in with high hopes...
Audio wise, the production was sub-par. Whoever did the sound engineering had the narrator cut in so often, small snippets of speech that did not gel with the rest of the audio. After 10 hours I got somewhat used to it, but I was surprised that an audible production was so low-quality... it sounded awkward and clumsy and unnatural.
As for the story, I’m not a surfer, but I appreciated this book. My only real critique is that it didn’t dive into the emotional depths that I need from a memoir. It felt very surface-level and focused more on description and facts. Personally, I don’t enjoy that type of writing. Also, it was entirely too long for my liking. Half the length would have been perfect for me.
Still, as a non-surfer, I found myself lost in his descriptions of waves and trips: it felt exciting at times!
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1 person found this helpful