Book Review

Title: ”The Skateboard – The Good, the Rad, and the Gnarly” by Ben Marcus

Reviewed By: Sam Way

How many times have you bolted your trucks onto your piece of 7-ply concaved Canadian maple, squeezed your precision abec bearings into your urethane wheels and cruised down to your local skatepark?  Have you ever thought about the history of that plank of wood under your feet?

If you’re anything like me, never. You see, I’m a skateboarder from a newer generation. I grew up with a local skatepark, the X-games and Tony Hawk on my Playstation. I have never given a second thought to where these wheelie boards came from, only where it was taking me and the fun I would get from it. The Skateboard – The Good, the Rad, and the Gnarly opened my eyes to the invention, innovation and social revolution of the skateboard from humble beginnings in the late 1940s to the present day. And it really is an incredible story.

The author, Ben Marcus, did an incredible job researching the book, which is packed with interviews with the inventors, the innovators and the riders that created the skateboards we ride today. He was skateboarding in the 1970s before the urethane wheel and later worked for Surfer magazine for ten years and has also written nine books since then. “This book celebrates all that simple fun my friends and I had skateboarding”.