[ Bustin' Down the Door ]
[ Waves ][ High Surf ]
Price AUD$33.00 plus postage and handling.
The book that started it all. The biography of '78 world surfing champion Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew has become a surfing classic, selling out six print runs, and still in print 10 year's after its release. It was re-released and updated in 2002, and won the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame media award in 1997.
Tim's surfing titles are also available through Harper Collins publishers from most good book stores in Australia, or from the Harper Collins website.
Reviews
"This is a tremendous book: warm, honest, inspirational and fun."
Mike Colman, the Sunday Telegraph.
"No triumph-over-adversity cliches or mind-numbing statistical blasts here. A sports read offering a legitimate story untouched by agents of PR flunkies ... A fine book."
Steve Reilly, the Melbourne Age.
"Just like the waves of Rab's beloved Kirra, this story grinds along with each new section deeper and more intense than the last. The best non-fictional read of the year."
Shane Peel, Waverider magazine.
"Throughout, the book has a distinctly Hunter S. Thompson quality, with Bartholomew pinballing his way from one wild brawl to another drunken binge, always teetering on the edge of total disaster ... At book's end he emerges as someone you'd definitely enjoy having lunch with because he is a born storyteller who's been out there and amongst it with the very best of them ... Tim Baker has done an outstanding job in bringing it all together, in what has clearly been a labour of love."
Peter Fitzsimons, The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Bustin' Down The Door is the fascinating story of one of surfing's most controversial and charismatic stars who sits comfortably in the same galaxy as Nat Young, Mark Richards, Tom Carroll, Midget Farrelly, Mark Occhilupo and Michael Peterson."
David Knox, the Sun-Herald.
"This is an incredible book, the result of a great collaboration between Rabbit and Tim Baker, 12 months' work and countless hours of interviews. Rabbit is one of the great storytellers of the surfing world, a man of passion and vision, who has experienced the highs and lows most of us will never come close to and it's all here ...
"For those of us whose formative surfing years were in the '70s, Rabbit was one of the most influential figures of the decade. To the grommets he epitomised everything which was cool about pro surfing - he ripped in anything, he went hard, he was smart and he maintained the wild surfing spirit while still being a pro ... He was a pure surfer and we grommets knew it."
Reggae Elliss, Deep magazine.
"This is a gorgeous book. Absolutely required reading, especially for the ASP's top 44. Yeah boys, I know you can pull air drop wheelies and look bored almost anywhere on the planet, but ... did you ever run screaming through the Kauai jungle on a mega-hit of mushrooms administered by none other than Grajagan surf camp found, Mike Boyum? Did you ever hide in a condominium on the North Shore with a tennis racquet clutched in your fist waiting for the entire population of the island to pop around and rearrange your dentistry? Did you ride perfect 10 foot Kirra Point before the groyne and go tube for tube with Michael Peterson in his heyday? Did you ever actually ... start something?
"What I will always and forever love about Rabbit and his comrades in arms of pro surfing's early days was their ability to simultaneously talk it up and laugh it off. They'd tell the whole world about their dreams of professional competition; they'd go out in any conditions and cut their right arms off to win; then they'd go to the nearest restaurant and buy everyone dinner, including their most horrid opponents and be broke again. And they were never, ever bored. Neither will the reader of this book."
Nick Carroll, Surfing Magazine.