Just Start with Surfing
Surfing is one of those pursuits that looks effortless from shore and feels impossible for the first dozen attempts. You paddle out, get tumbled, paddle again, miss the wave, and repeat until your arms burn and your pride takes a beating. Then one morning something clicks. You catch a wave, pop up, and for three or four seconds you are gliding across water with nothing between you and the ocean but a board and your own balance. That moment rewires your brain. You will spend the rest of your surfing life chasing it, refining it, and discovering that those few seconds contain more than enough reason to keep going back.
The challenge for beginners is that surfing involves a dozen skills at once: reading waves, timing your paddle, positioning on the board, popping up, maintaining balance, and understanding ocean currents and safety. A good surfing book breaks these down into learnable steps and helps you understand what the ocean is doing before you ever get wet.
Start here
The Kook's Guide to Surfing
Jason Borte · 192 pages · 2013 · Easy
Themes: technique, board selection, wave reading, ocean safety, surf etiquette
The most practical and approachable instructional surfing book available, recommended by the United States Surfing Federation as essential reading for every beginning surfer. Jason Borte covers the full spectrum of what a new surfer needs to know: choosing the right board, understanding waves and currents, proper paddling technique, the pop-up, riding etiquette, and staying safe in the ocean.
Why Start Here
Most surfing books fall into two camps: dense instructional manuals that read like textbooks, or memoir-style narratives that inspire you but leave you no closer to actually catching a wave. The Kook’s Guide hits the sweet spot between the two. Borte writes with humor and honesty about the reality of being a beginner, while delivering genuinely useful instruction on every aspect of the sport.
The book is organized around the progression a real beginner follows. It starts with equipment: how to choose a board for your size and skill level, what wetsuit you need, and why wax matters more than you think. Then it moves into water skills: reading the break, timing your paddle, positioning yourself in the lineup, and the mechanics of the pop-up. Each skill builds on the last, so you are never thrown into deep water (figuratively) without preparation.
What sets this book apart is its coverage of the unwritten rules of surfing. Lineup etiquette, right of way, and how to share waves without causing conflict are topics that most instructional books gloss over but that matter enormously once you are in the water with other surfers. Borte treats these social skills as seriously as the physical ones, which saves beginners from the awkward and sometimes dangerous situations that come from not knowing the code.
The illustrations by Matt Brown add a lighthearted touch and make complex concepts like wave anatomy and board positioning easy to visualize.
What to Expect
A 192-page guide that you can read in a few sittings before your first surf trip. The tone is casual and encouraging, like getting advice from a friend who happens to be a surf instructor. Borte does not pretend surfing is easy, but he breaks it down into manageable pieces. You will come away understanding how waves work, what board to rent or buy first, how to paddle efficiently, and what to do (and not do) when you are sharing a break with experienced surfers. The book works well as both a pre-surf primer and a reference you return to as your skills develop.
Alternatives
Peter Heller · 336 pages · 2010 · Easy
Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award, Peter Heller’s memoir follows his journey from complete beginner to competent surfer over the course of a single year. At age 46, the award-winning adventure writer picked up a board and drove from Southern California down the coast of Mexico with his girlfriend, documenting the frustrations, breakthroughs, and strange beauty of learning to surf as an adult.
Why This One
Kook is not an instructional book. You will not learn the mechanics of a pop-up or how to read a tide chart from these pages. What Heller gives you instead is something equally valuable: an honest, beautifully written account of what it actually feels like to be terrible at surfing and to keep going anyway.
Heller is an accomplished outdoor writer with an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and it shows. His descriptions of the ocean, the surf culture, and the physical reality of being tumbled by waves are vivid and specific in a way that most surfing memoirs never achieve. He writes about the embarrassment of being a kook in a lineup of experienced surfers, the quiet elation of catching your first real wave, and the way surfing reshapes your relationship with fear and patience.
The travel narrative adds another dimension. As Heller and his girlfriend drive south through Baja and beyond, the book becomes a love story, a road trip, and an exploration of what it means to start something new in middle age. He meets eccentric locals, sleeps in parking lots, and gradually transforms from a flailing beginner into someone who understands the rhythm of the ocean.
What to Expect
A 336-page narrative memoir that reads more like literary adventure writing than a sports book. Heller’s prose is lyrical without being precious, and the pacing moves between surfing sessions, travel scenes, and reflections on why we pursue difficult things. If you want motivation and context before picking up a board, or if you have already started surfing and want a book that captures the feeling of the sport, this is the one.
Doug Werner · 128 pages · 1999 · Easy
A compact, no-nonsense beginner guide that has been recommended by the United States Surfing Federation as a book every beginning surfer should read. Doug Werner strips the sport down to its essentials and walks new surfers through gear, conditions, safety, etiquette, and basic technique in a relaxed, conversational style.
Why This One
Surfer’s Start-Up earns its place as an alternative because of its brevity and directness. At 128 pages, it respects your time. Werner does not pad the book with lifestyle photography or extended meditations on the surfing spirit. Instead, he gets straight to what you need: how to choose a board, how to read basic wave conditions, how to paddle and pop up, and how to stay out of trouble in the water.
The book is part of Werner’s Start-Up Sports series, which has the same philosophy across multiple disciplines. Assume the reader knows nothing, explain the fundamentals clearly, and make it feel approachable rather than intimidating. For surfing specifically, this means spending real time on the fears that stop most people: getting held under, dealing with currents, and handling wipeouts. Werner treats these topics honestly rather than brushing them aside.
What to Expect
A short, practical book you can finish in an afternoon. The approach is casual and uses plenty of photographs to illustrate technique. Werner’s writing style is friendly and conversational, making this an easy entry point if you want a quick overview before your first lesson or surf trip. It covers the same territory as longer instructional books but in a more condensed format, which makes it ideal if you prefer to learn the basics fast and refine through practice.