Overview
A New York Times Notable Book A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year In her astonishing new book Susan Casey 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.
Professional Reviews
"[Susan Casey] examines big waves from every angle, and goes in deep with those who know the phenomenon most intimately....Casey makes a convincing, entertaining case (nifty cliffhangers and all) that there is a heretofore little-known monster in our midst....She pushes the scientists on the big question.....Casey is fluent in 'gnarly' and proficient in 'wonk,' and she writes lucidly so the rest of us can come along for the ride. Her wonderfully vivid, kinetic narrative....offers a prescient vision of watery perils--and sometimes, bittersweet triumphs....Amid the images of demolition, Casey hangs on to the magic and beauty of waves."--New York Times Book Review
"You thinkJaws made you fear the ocean? In this adrenaline rush of a book, Casey....describes 'nature's biggest tantrum'....Her eerie, majestic descriptions...make THE WAVE an unsettling thrill ride that's as terrifying as it is awe inspiring."--People
"Casey does an exceptional job of explaining the natural forces (winds, currents, ocean-bottom shape) that create these daunting, at times fatal, surfing spots....Casey's account of the impromptu adventure is terrific"
-- Wall Street Journal
"The book dives deeply into the world of top-level surfers....Casey does a commendable job of surveying the broader problems confronting wave studies....compelling and wonderfully detailed....engrossing....Casey adroitly moves beyond what we think we know about big-wave surf culture and churns out a series of action chapters that are not for the faint of heart."--Los Angeles Times
"A fabulous page-turner" John Hockenbery, NPR
"[A] captivating hybrid--an intro to the mind-melting physics of waves and a ride-along with the scientists and surfers who chase after them...Fascinating"
-- Men's Journal
"[A] breath-snatching thrill ride"
-- Elle
"Casey pursues....with tenacity and literary grace....a powerful voice in adventure writing....delves into the science....masterful"--Outside
"offers a probing look at both the passionate and the pragmatic sides of these oceanic wonders....compelling reading"---Bookpage Something is stewing in our seas, and Susan Casey-traveling, and in some casesswimming,all around the world-is eager to find out what it is. Both a rollicking look at the ocean's growing freakishness and a troubling examination of our ailing planet, The Wavegives new meaning to the term immersion reporting. -Hampton Sides, author ofHellhound on His Trail, Blood and Thunder, and Ghost Soldiers At once scary and fun, The Wave surprises at every turn. -Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe. Like the surfers and scientists she profiles, Casey lived and breathed giant waves for years. Casey combines an insane passion for craft with an uncanny ability to describe the indescribable. In The Wave she whisks the reader off to unimaginably surreal settings and puts them in the middle of mind-blowing scenarios. This book sucked me in like the undertow at Pipeline. -Mary Roach, author of Stiffand Packing for Mars Reading The Wave is the closest most of us will ever come to the sensation of riding, or even seeing, one of these towering monsters of the sea. It's exhilarating, astonishing, and, not infrequently, terrifying. Brace yourself. -Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt
"THE WAVE is an amazing look at humble yet larger-than-life people who live by daring feats, honorable acts, and selfless denial-- in short, these guys don't care if anyone is looking as they attempt what seems impossible: riding waves the size of ten story sky scrapers.
