Talk about keeping cool

A landscape of wild rides

Have Board, Will Travel

Jamie Brisick

Perennial Currents, $19.95

This eye-popping combination of text and photos is a celebration of the ongoing quest for the perfect line and the sheer, kinetic energy of riding gravity. Beginning with the earliest recorded board riders (Hawaii, 1778) through Malibu’s late-’50s golden age, big gun boards, Tahoe half-pipes and X Games competition, Brisick has produced an evocative history of recreational boarding.

The icons are all here too: The Duke, Greg Noll, Dewey Weber, Hobie Alter, Tony Hawk, Kelly Slater and other innovative boardniks are on display at the height of their powers. Chock-full of photos of suspended action, vintage graphics and a classic 1965 Life magazine cover on the “craze and menace of skateboards,” the book captures an exhilarating jolt of eternally carving, rolling youth.

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Michael Koehn