Scan barcode
writesdave's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
4.5
I'll give it 4.5 stars, as Susan Casey quite proficiently toed the line between grasping and expressing the science while embracing the mysticism of the ocean, specifically the increasingly malevolent waves that scare shore dwellers and thrill surfers. she went literally to the ends of the earth to chase the story, from the staid offices of Lloyd's of London, to an oceanography lab in a rough part of Cape Town, to the idyllic breaks on the north shore of Maui. And she captured the spirit in speaking with the denizens of all three locales (and beyond).
I'll call it a "fun" read with the qualification that you do need to prepare yourself for doses of science and meathead bravado, but Susan did well.
I'll call it a "fun" read with the qualification that you do need to prepare yourself for doses of science and meathead bravado, but Susan did well.
kimball_hansen's review against another edition
3.0
I like books with this theme of taking a small topic and going into detail about it. So points for that, the author is a pretty good writer. But negative points are awarded for the global warming narrative that she unnecessarily preached often.
The book could have been shorter and it was a little anticlimactic at the end. Yet I've found myself thinking about it a lot which is why I've given it 3 starts instead of 2.5. But that could be because I go swimming in the ocean in the mornings before work.
Why didn't she talk about the Pororoca from the Amazon from Elder Renlund's talk.
The book could have been shorter and it was a little anticlimactic at the end. Yet I've found myself thinking about it a lot which is why I've given it 3 starts instead of 2.5. But that could be because I go swimming in the ocean in the mornings before work.
Why didn't she talk about the Pororoca from the Amazon from Elder Renlund's talk.
ridgewaygirl's review
3.0
I have mixed feelings about Susan Casey's newest book, The Wave. She's the author of one of my favorite non-fiction books last year, The Devil's Teeth, which was one of those scattershot approaches to science and history that are so popular right now. You know, the kind of book which gives you a bunch of fun facts and exciting anecdotes about a subject, without going into too much detail or challenging the reader with difficult bits of the science. It sounds terrible, but when it works, it's entertaining and gives the reader a good jumping off point for further reading. In the case of The Devil's Teeth, Casey took the Farallons, a group of hostile islands west of San Francisco, and created an enticing mix of history and natural science (birds, sharks and currents) that was hard to put down.
She's less successful in The Wave and I'm not sure whether it was that the topic was too broad to be handled as the stream of consciousness of someone who is easily distracted, or because the heart of the book was not in a place that interested me. The concept of the book is that until recently it was believed that waves of 100 feet or more were simply impossible from the point of view of basic physics; the weight of the water would cause the wave to collapse upon itself before it grew that high, and eyewitness accounts (which are rare, for reasons of drowning) were overstated due to understandable excitement. Then an 850-foot long cargo ship went down in a storm and the wreck showed damage high up on it's structure. An oil platform was also hit by a rogue wave of over 100 feet high and damage to the structure proved the oil workers were not making things up.
Half of the chapters are about how scientists are studying the physics of waves, how global warming is influencing the size of waves (hint: they are getting bigger), describing instances of giant waves and their aftermath and in discussing how we are reacting to the challenge of rogue waves. This was all excellent, although I would have liked a great deal more. She only describes one event in any detail and the book would have benefited from describing more dramatic events and with paying more attention to them. I would have also liked more of the science, which seems to be complex and speculative.
The other half of the book, told in alternating chapters, was a sort of sports article about a year in the life of surfing king Laird Hamilton, who developed something called tow-surfing. As waves get bigger, they also get faster, so that traditional surfing, where the surfer paddles out to the wave and "catches" it no longer works. Instead, the surfer is chauffeured out to the wave on a jet ski and sort of flung at speed onto its face. The jet ski then drives round the wave to rescue the surfer at the end of his ride. This would have made a great twenty pages or so, but Casey looooves the daredevil romance of it all, in which Hamilton and his entourage of fellow surfers and photographers travel the world to ride the enormous waves generated by storms at sea, and describes day after day of Hamilton's surfing exploits in Hawai'i, California, Mexico and Tahiti. Frankly, Hamilton comes across as an entitled asshat and I quickly grew tired of his complaints about how surfing is no longer the pure sport he practices (as supported by his corporate sponsorships), or how he hates competitions (as he travels with photographers on hand to film his majestic rides) and anyone surfing where he wants to surf. I'm not someone who would pick up a sports biography, so I'm clearly not the right person to comment on that half of the book, but it became a little repetitive over time.
Still, the central topic is fascinating and anything written about our changing oceans is worth a read.
She's less successful in The Wave and I'm not sure whether it was that the topic was too broad to be handled as the stream of consciousness of someone who is easily distracted, or because the heart of the book was not in a place that interested me. The concept of the book is that until recently it was believed that waves of 100 feet or more were simply impossible from the point of view of basic physics; the weight of the water would cause the wave to collapse upon itself before it grew that high, and eyewitness accounts (which are rare, for reasons of drowning) were overstated due to understandable excitement. Then an 850-foot long cargo ship went down in a storm and the wreck showed damage high up on it's structure. An oil platform was also hit by a rogue wave of over 100 feet high and damage to the structure proved the oil workers were not making things up.
Half of the chapters are about how scientists are studying the physics of waves, how global warming is influencing the size of waves (hint: they are getting bigger), describing instances of giant waves and their aftermath and in discussing how we are reacting to the challenge of rogue waves. This was all excellent, although I would have liked a great deal more. She only describes one event in any detail and the book would have benefited from describing more dramatic events and with paying more attention to them. I would have also liked more of the science, which seems to be complex and speculative.
The other half of the book, told in alternating chapters, was a sort of sports article about a year in the life of surfing king Laird Hamilton, who developed something called tow-surfing. As waves get bigger, they also get faster, so that traditional surfing, where the surfer paddles out to the wave and "catches" it no longer works. Instead, the surfer is chauffeured out to the wave on a jet ski and sort of flung at speed onto its face. The jet ski then drives round the wave to rescue the surfer at the end of his ride. This would have made a great twenty pages or so, but Casey looooves the daredevil romance of it all, in which Hamilton and his entourage of fellow surfers and photographers travel the world to ride the enormous waves generated by storms at sea, and describes day after day of Hamilton's surfing exploits in Hawai'i, California, Mexico and Tahiti. Frankly, Hamilton comes across as an entitled asshat and I quickly grew tired of his complaints about how surfing is no longer the pure sport he practices (as supported by his corporate sponsorships), or how he hates competitions (as he travels with photographers on hand to film his majestic rides) and anyone surfing where he wants to surf. I'm not someone who would pick up a sports biography, so I'm clearly not the right person to comment on that half of the book, but it became a little repetitive over time.
Still, the central topic is fascinating and anything written about our changing oceans is worth a read.
shellbellbell's review
5.0
Sometimes I read nonfiction! (When I find it in the little free library on my morning walk).
This was a great book, a perfectly balanced mix of science, ship disaster stories, and surfing adventure stories. It's also a personal story that explores big wave surfing culture that follows a few select surfers over the course of the book so we get to know them as people. That was a nice touch.
This was a great book, a perfectly balanced mix of science, ship disaster stories, and surfing adventure stories. It's also a personal story that explores big wave surfing culture that follows a few select surfers over the course of the book so we get to know them as people. That was a nice touch.
meghan111's review
4.0
Super readable and engaging nonfiction about the science of waves, rogue waves, and the surfing community.