{
  "type": "edition",
  "site": {
    "name": "The Book Quiver",
    "language": "en-US",
    "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com"
  },
  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "title": "Barbarian Days",
  "subtitle": null,
  "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/william-finnegan/barbarian-days/9781472151414",
  "publisher": "corsair",
  "translators": [],
  "medium": "paper",
  "duration_seconds": null,
  "narrators": [],
  "illustrators": [],
  "cover_artists": [],
  "isbn": "978-14-7215-141-4",
  "pages": null,
  "published": "2016-05-10",
  "language": "en_GB",
  "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/corsair/william-finnegan/barbarian-days_978-14-7215-141-4.jpg?v=2026-05-17%2018%3A27%3A18",
  "json": "https://www.bookquiver.com/william-finnegan/barbarian-days/9781472151414.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.bookquiver.com/william-finnegan/barbarian-days/9781472151414.md",
  "binding": "Softcover",
  "description": "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and William Hill Sports Book of the Year: Barbarian Days is a deeply rendered self-portrait of a lifelong surfer looking for transcendence 'that recalls early James Salter' (Geoff Dyer, Observer) Surfing only looks like a sport. To devotees, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a mental and physical study, a passionate way of life. New Yorker writer William Finnegan first started surfing as a young boy in California and Hawaii. Barbarian Days is his immersive memoir of a life spent travelling the world chasing waves through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa and beyond. Finnegan describes the edgy yet enduring brotherhood forged among the swell of the surf; and recalling his own apprenticeship to the world's most famous and challenging waves, he considers the intense relationship formed between man, board and water. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, a social history, an extraordinary exploration of one man's gradual mastering of an exacting and little-understood art. It is a memoir of dangerous obsession and enchantment. '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 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography announced on 18/4/2016. Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year announced on 24/11/2016",
  "book": {
    "title": "Barbarian Days",
    "slug": "barbarian-days",
    "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/william-finnegan/barbarian-days"
  },
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "William Finnegan",
      "slug": "william-finnegan",
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/william-finnegan"
    }
  ]
}