Looking for a great book on surfing and life, then try Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life and Catching the Perfect Wave by Peter Heller which won the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature in 2010.  Peter Heller is on a quest which is in one year to learn how to surf well, to master one big, beautiful hollow wave that only a very experienced surfer can ride.  But there's a problem.  He is a beginner.  In fact, he is a kook, a derisive term in surfing lingo for a bumbling, rank beginner.

There's another problem: his love life.  In that endeavor, he is also a kook.  Middle-aged, with a string of disappointing love affairs, Heller is hopeful that things might change with the new love of his life—Kim, a beautiful woman of Chinese descent.  In this rich and gracefully written book, we follow along with Heller on an insightful, year-long quest as he travels from Southern California down the coast of Mexico in the company of his girlfriend and the eccentric surfers they meet.

Exuberant and fearless, Heller explores the technique and science of surfing, the secrets of its culture and the environmental ravages to the stunning coastline he visits as he grapples with the dual, ever capricious, challenges of love and the sea.  322 pages of an excellent surfing, and life, adventure.