So, I normally listen to sports radio on a daily. I fluctuate between certain shows. My favorite current sports show is First Things First on Fox Sports. It's a great listen/watch...
Anyway, I also listen to a lot of audio books. When I make a day trip up to Charleston for work, it's sometimes 5 hours in the car. etc. Normally, my lineup is Special Ops military books. I also listened to every fighter pilot/military aviation book that has ever been written....
A couple of months ago, back when MS went dark, I went down a rabbit hole of surf related audio books.
A couple of goods ones:
In Search of Captain Zero: It's about a guy from the NE that grew up surfing and diving on the east coast. He and his best friend spent some time in California, and then for like 20 years, they traveled all around Mexico surfing. So the premise is this: This guy is older now. I think mid 50s to 60s. Can't recall. But he hasn't seen his friend in years. He dissapeared and never got in touch with anyone. So the guy gets in his truck/camper with his dog, and ventures down into Baja in search for his friend. He starts by hitting up all the old surf and camping spots. The cool part about the book, is that it doesn't do the "secret spot" BS. He names every spot he surfs. Every location he camps. Anyway, the book goes on and on. He ends up traveling of the Sea of Cortez to mainland Mexico, and then down into central American to find his buddy. Surfing the whole way. Staying at a camp site until the swell fades....
I won't tell you the end, and the end gets a bit weird, but he ends up on the Carribean side of Central America surfing a notorious crazy reef slab.... Good read. Especially if you have spent time in Mexico. I have been to a dozen of the spots he talks about and camps at etc... It's a fictional book, but written by a seasoned surfer that really lived this life.... Good book.
The other one I would recommend is "Surf is where you find it" by Gerry Lopez. It's basically his life story, told by him. About growing up. His first surfboard. His first trip to Indo. First time surfing pipe. How things were back in the early days. How crazy it was when they had no swell forecasts, and the surf would go from chest high to TOH in 3 hours, and there was no way of knowing. No leashes. All that... Anyway, it's a pretty good read/listen/
Books on tape are awesome, it's been a while since I've listened to one, but I use to do it all the time. I got back into traditional reading a ways back, and one book I have read and is still at my coffee table in the family room is, you named it, "In Search of Captain Zero". Really interesting book and kept my attention the whole way through. It gets a little dark and weird, but it made for a WTF is going on here type of feeling, and that was pretty cool. How much of his story is fiction IDK, but either way I liked it.
Another book I read most of but not finished with yet, is "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William / Bill Finnegan. Really good read so far, I got derailed a while back so I have to pick it back up to finish it, but I was locked in for a bit. Moved from CA to HI, was the haole, worked his way up the pecking order both in and out of the water, travels the world to other surf destinations. That's where I'm at in the book if I recall.
But as far as books on tape go, it's been a long time, I use to listen to a lot of personal and professional growth, "motivational" content, some Christian based, some secular, I mixed it up, learned from very successful people from all walks of life.
When I was a kid I really enjoyed those Dragon Lance books and books on tape. The narration on the books on tape really brought those stories to life. I kinda miss those lol
@dawnpatrol321 Nice. I have Barbarian Days downloaded. It's on my audio app. I just took a break from the surfing books after 3 in a row. I have a couple more novels about this Black Ops guy, then I am going to do Barbarian days....
In Search Of Captain Zero... DP, since you read it, there really won't be a spoiler. I won't say too too much, but I didn't expect that last 1/3 of the book to go the way it did. Crack. Junkies and all that in Panama or whatever. Definitely took a dark turn, but in regards to that, drug problems and surfing have gone back since the beginning, so there is for sure some truth to it.
As for listens. DP, two years ago, I listened to the entire old testament. It was a tough listen. That book is absolutely wild if you don't constantly put into context where and when it was written.
Then I listened to the new testament. But after that, I found a couple adaptations, that were more like movies that you listen too. Actors. Special effects sounds. Backgrounds.... And translates the bible into a more palatable story, rather than just reading the scripture verbatim.
The one I listened to most recently was "Faith Comes by Hearing"..... It's really good.
My New Year's Resolution was to read the Bible from start to finish and the "Bible in a Year" was my ticket.
Unfortunately, I totally underestimated how boring the Old Testament is and I fell off last month. Not sure if I can keep going.
Regardless, Audible has been an absolute game changer for me. My favorite book, so far, has been "Alas Babylon."
Highly recommend it; especially for you Florida Boyz
@shredmachine Yeah, the Old Testament is a tough read/listen. I mean, the first 2 hours is "Such and such, son of Abram" and so on... Talking about how they lived to be 850 years old... Then, when you finally make it through that, you get into the stories of incest and all kinds of weird shit. I had to stop listening once the story came along where the daughter is upset that her father never had a son, so she gets him drunk on wine, sleeps with him and gets pregnant with a son for her father... Granted, this is and OLD book, but there are just so many parts of that book where I am like, dang... I gotta give this a rest for a bit. New Testament really hits home a lot more for me....
The Old Testament was written between 12,000 years ago to 4,000 years ago.... And it shows....
I have been reading the Old Testament again (NKJ) for a little while now off and on, and I actually enjoy it quite a bit. I don't try to analyze it too much, I just read it, and let it sink in, and I let the meaning come to me, God will reveal to me what I need to know at that moment. You could read it today and get something from it, and read it again later down the road, and it hit you completely different. To me, that's powerful and awesome.
Don't give up Shred, bite size pieces if necessary, I have my days where I get a lot of reading done and others where I do very little or sometimes none, but I try to at least pick it up weekly. Take the pressure of the deadline off, and just enjoy the journey my brother.
I read Captain Zero, thought it was a good story. I made the mistake of reading Weissbackers book published after that. The whole book is about his dealings with Hollywood scumbags, publishing scumbags, ex-pat surfer and Tico scumbags and his relationship with his sociopath nymphomaniac girlfriend. Felt dirty after finishing it. Barbarian Days was a great book. That guy was front and center for a bunch of momentous times and places in surf history. I read a lot and everything is starting to blend together a bit. I can’t remember the last time I read something really great. Maybe “I, Claudius” or something…