SKU: 99278500438

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

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Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** "Reading this guy on the subject of waves and water is like reading Hemingway on bullfighting; William Burroughs on controlled substances; Updike on adultery. . . . a coming of age story, seen through the gloss resin coat of a surfboard." Sports Illustrated Included in President Obama's 2016 Summer Reading List Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment.

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**

"Reading this guy on the subject of waves and water is like reading Hemingway on bullfighting; William Burroughs on controlled substances; Updike on adultery. . . . a coming-of-age story, seen through the gloss resin coat of a surfboard." --Sports Illustrated

Included in President Obama's 2016 Summer Reading List

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: 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 reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves.

Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. 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. As Finnegan's travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.

Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

Praise for Barbarian Days

"Without a doubt, the finest surf book I've ever read . . . But on a more fundamental level, Barbarian Days offers a clear-eyed vision of American boyhood. Like Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, it is a sympathetic examination of what happens when literary ideas of freedom and purity take hold of a young mind and fling his body out into the far reaches of the world." --The New York Times Magazine

"Incandescent . . . I'd sooner press this book upon on a nonsurfer, in part because nothing I've read so accurately describes the feeling of being stoked or the despair of being held under. . . . But] it's also about a writer's life and, even more generally, a quester's life, more carefully observed and precisely rendered than any I've read in a long time." --Los Angeles Times


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 04/26/2016
ISBN: 9780143109396
Pages: 464
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.45w x 1.00d
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SKU: 99278500438

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Tricia Rees
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 5
Westie LOVES this toy
Color: U.S.A, Size: Medium
My pup (Westie) adores this toy. This is actually our second one. The ball itself is resistant but the straps will be obliterated. Would definitely recommend! Totally worth the price!
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Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2026
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regina
Belleville, US
★★★★★ 3
Not durable
Color: Black/White, Size: Large
If you have a dog who likes to pop things then this toy isn't it. Within 5 min she had this ball popped. It was made to sound like it was durable for this type of thing but it definitely is not so just be aware. Now if you have a dog who doesn't pop things easy then this would be a good toy
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Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2026
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Billie W
Carnegie, US
★★★★★ 5
They last quite well, even out in weather.
Color: Black/White, Size: Medium
NY corgi loves these!
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Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2026
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Joyce S.
Battle Creek, US
★★★★★ 5
Dog can't pop it!
Color: Black/White, Size: Medium
Great toy would buy again!
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Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2025
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Elaine Laventure
Alexandria, US
★★★★★ 4
WHAT I LEARNED
Color: U.S.A, Size: Medium
i AM NOT SURE THAT 4 STARS IS A FAIR SCORE, MY DOG IS AN AGGRESSIVE CHEWER, NEEDLESS TO SAY WITHIN 2 DAYS ALL THE TABS WERE OFF, BUT THERE WERE NUBS LEFT AND SHE CAN USE THAT. HERE IS A WHAT NOT TO DO, BRING IT TO THE DOG PARK, THEY ALL HAVE A BLAST BUT IF YOUR A BULLY/PIT MIX AND DECIDE TO SINK THEIR TEETH INTO IT, IT DOES DEFLAT. LESSONS LEARNED STILL A FUN TOY.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2026

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