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The Skate Book Club newsletter moves into month two! Thanks for joining and we’ve got a nice mix this month. As always, this monthly newsletter will feature some of the best books that the skate publishing world has to offer. We’ll feature new books, and vintage classics, in both the visual and literary zones. If you have a book in the works, please let us know.
November’s Selection:
‘Crash Landing’ by Li Charmaine AnneCongratulations to debut author, Li Charmaine “Char” Anne (she/they) whose young adult book, Crash Landing (2024, Annick Press), has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature, which is a prestigious Canadian award. In a recent interview, Char explained that growing up as a “bookish nerd from an immigrant family,” they avoided the skate park,
which they assumed was occupied exclusively by white boys skipping school. Char stuck to their quiet suburban streets, but eventually gained courage and developed friendships through organizations like the Late Bloomers Skate Club, Real Hot Skate Moms, and Takeover Skateboarding, and became a regular at the Britannia Courts in Vancouver. If
you’ve seen footage of pro skaters Una Farrar, Breana Geering, and Rick McCrank skate a tennis court filled with DIY obstacles, you’ll know the one. Char’s personal experiences as a queer, Asian skateboarder are foundational for Crash Landing, which follows the story of Jay Wong who is struggling to stomp a kickflip in the summer of 2010 in isolation. When Jay meets a confident and talented skater named Ash, she’s introduced to a whole other scene in Vancouver and cultivates a new sense of community, identity, and inclusion. The responses to this book have been very positive with readers stating that they wished they had a book like Crash Landing as a teenager. Read the book for yourself, or buy it for a teen, but show your support for a new writer and committed skateboarder.
The details:
Published by Annick Press
ISBN: 9781773218410
6 x 9 inches
Pages: 288
Cole Nowicki has been around skateboarding for a while now. He’s written for The Walrus, Thrasher Magazine, Catapult, VICE, the Toronto Star, Maisonneuve, and commercially for Electronic Arts, Article, lululemon, Hootsuite, and Adidas Skateboarding. We caught up with Cole and asked a few questions about his new book ‘Laser Quit Smoking Massage’ from NeWest Press.
Skate Book Club (SBC): Your new book is a bit of a love letter to small Western Canadian towns. Did you ever think you’d write about something like this when you were younger? Cole Nowicki (CN): Not explicitly, but I think growing up in small towns made me more attuned to and appreciative of their quirks and foibles, and for me, those things are more enjoyable to write about. SBC: How did this book come together? Was there a goal to collect stories within a subject, is there a connected narrative or theme, or was it more organic? CN: It was more organic. The collection is, in essence, a good chunk of my writing from about 2016-2022. When I started playing
around with putting these pieces into a manuscript, their shared themes around community and belonging became pretty apparent. Before that, I hadn’t noticed how much those ideas animated my writing at the time, and probably still do. SBC: You are known for writing about skateboarding. Does skating play a part in this book? CN: There’s one essay, “Smooth Black Marble,” that looks at using skateboarding as a way to process grief, but most of the other references or tangents into skating in this book are pretty minimal. SBC: People, and skateboarders, are often pigeon-holed into areas that they have been identified as or with. You’ve done skateboard books and written for skate publications, so you
must be the skate author guy–does the literary world try and craft that story? Is it less obvious in that world? CN: I think it can, but it’s all for the purpose of marketing. If you build your “brand” on writing about a certain subject or in a particular style, people and publishers will come to expect that from you. Your perspective or expertise becomes easier to sell the greater, more cohesive catalogue you have. But, again, that’s all marketing. Write whatever you want. Personally, I’m not sure how people perceive me or my work. I guess being perceived at all is nice, even if I’m a skate author guy. SBC: You’ve got a lot of projects going on, what else should we look for from you? CN: I’m working on a collection of essays that expands on a lot of the pieces and themes from my skateboarding-related writing, sort of tracing the evolution of skateboarding’s culture and industry in parallel with the growth of the internet, social media, and the hyper-commercialization of our private lives over the last few decades. It’s more fun than that sounds.
Three more books we thought you might enjoy
SKATE BREAK: Prototypes for Play by Trapp ProjectsISBN: N/A There are clips from a Swatch video of Andy Anderson called “SKATE BREAK” (21 mins) making the rounds online where Andy has collaborated with a design company collectively known as the Zenga Bros (Benny, Christian, Aaron and Stephen). Andy skates a series of stylish, yet practical objects that have a dual purpose like the “desk ramp,” “lamp ramp,” and “boardroom table,” with his signature creative approach. As a reader and book collector, you might also be interested in knowing that a tiny, precious book called SKATE BREAK:
Prototypes for Play (2024) was recently published to compliment an art exhibition (January/February 2024), which is essentially the back-drop of the video. The book includes a manifesto surrounding the vision of these designs where the intention is to “free the mind and invigorate the body. To excite the modern workspace and transform the world.” There’s also reference to artists like Bruno Munari, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, and Jean Tinguely who played with function, design, and movement, often with a good sense of humour. SKATE BREAK contains photos (both colour and black & white), artists’ sketches, action shots of Andy at play, and the designers’ philosophy printed on quality paper. The challenge is that, without an ISBN or obvious outlet, this book will be difficult to find but worth the
effort.
In the full-length video there’s some candid moments where the designers express delight and surprise in how Andy skates their furniture-obstacles that they never could have imagined when designing and building. It’s obviously a dream-team collaboration of innovators because, as Benny stated: “As soon as you think it, it’s possible.” Fun fact: If you were in Texas for the Swatch Nines Surf contest (Oct. 15-17), you might have seen another stunning skateboard creation by the Zenga Bros, extending into the harbour skated by a select crew including Anderson, Gustavo Ribeiro and Mami Tezuka. – Porter
Read And Destroy: Skateboarding Through a British Lens ’78 to ’95
by Dan AdamsISBN: 9781788842587 I grew up on the East Coast of the US in the 80s. Every skate magazine I could get my hands on was devoured, analyzed, and then dissected for the walls of my bedroom. Thrasher and Transworld were the standard. Poweredge was also a favorite. Once in a blue moon, I’d find myself with a copy of RAD from the other side of the
Atlantic Ocean. There were brands and skaters that I’d never heard of. I saw raw spots that reminded me more of the East Coast than what I saw from the US mags. RAD was like an alien message, but I spoke the language. I’ve been anticipating this book for a long while. – Freeborn
Unemployable: 30 years of Hardcore, Skate and Street
By Jason BoulterISBN: 9780358653073 Australian skateboarders have been stepping up on the global contest circuit with the likes of Arisa Trew, Keegan Palmer, Chloe Covell, Kieran Wolley, Shane O’Neill, among many others, but based on the book, Unemployable: 30 Years of Hardcore, Skate and Street (2016) by Jason Boulter, skaters weren’t always embraced by the general populace down under. Unemployable is focused on the backstory of Melbourne-based brothers, Stephen, Peter, and Matt Hill who took up
skateboarding in the 1970s and went on to found Globe International, which is considered one of the world’s largest companies that focuses on skateboarding and surfing. Peter was quoted as saying, “We had to start our business as we were basically unemployable.” Matt Hill expanded on the sentiment explaining that, “To the outside world that meant we were losers with juvenile hobbies and no future. To us, it meant not following a conventional life path.” Globe International, with its affiliate brands like Gallaz, Stüssy, Mossimo, and Obey, and then its connection to companies like enjoi and Darkstar after the acquisition of Kubic Marketing in 2002 (a holding company that owned World Industries and Dwindle Distribution) is a success story. And Unemployable goes deep into every transaction. I’m
talking 708 pages with 500 illustrations, and at 10 pounds that’s enough weight you could add it to your morning fitness regime. The book is utterly massive! Boulter shared that the project took four years to complete, and that we should anticipate a 2nd Edition very soon. I’ll admit that I’ve still only superficially browsed the beast since my interest was drawn primarily to Chapter Four. This is the small by mighty section which celebrates the all-female pro skateboarding team hooked up by Gallaz, and their epic video AKA: Girl Skater (2003, dir. Mike Hill) featuring Jaime Reyes, Vanessa Torres, Amy Caron,
Monica Shaw, Georgina Matthews, and Lauren Mollica. I was grateful for the photos and affirmation of this ground-breaking female team, and the contests that Globe/Gallaz hosted around the world. Meanwhile, it’s a toss-up if you should buy the book now or wait for round two, but Unemployable should be a staple in every skateboarding collector’s library. It’s visually dynamic, has an introduction by Rodney Mullen, the photos are well-balanced with text (although a smidge on the tiny font size), historical content full of great quotes and vintage advertisements, and some product placement. Overall, it’s an admirable feat that Boulter managed to pull off. And while I’m not sure if this is on purpose, Amazon has ranked it in three categories being Skateboarding (Books), Sports Industry, and… Job
Hunting & Career Guides! I’m thinking this is some sort of Australian humour? Good on ya. – Porter
Who’s putting this together, and why?John Freeborn & Natalie Porter
John Freeborn began skateboarding in 1986 and still tries to do tricks today. He is the publisher of Tails Of… an art and skateboarding zine that features a rotating curator for each issue. In the early days, John published The Media Locals Zine, The Kill Rocco Zine, Milkcrate Digest, and several others. During college, he founded Good&Evil skateboards. Later, he co-founded the artist co-op SPACE1026 in Philadelphia. In 2012, he self-published Big Kids/Little Kids which showcased the emerging art scene in Philadelphia.
Natalie Porter began skateboarding in 1995 and continues to skate today. She is a public librarian and founder of the Womxn Skate History archive and Instagram account @womxnsk8history. In 2003, she wrote the thesis, Female Skateboarder and their Negotiation of Space and Identity and has been collecting resources on women’s skate history ever since. Natalie also contributed to the skate zines Armpit (2002-2004) as an OG member of
the Skirtboarders crew in Montreal, and Idlewood (2009-2014) with Michelle Pezel of Antisocial skateshop in Vancouver. ECW Press will publish her book Girl Gangs, Zines, and Powerslides: a history of badass women skateboarders in Fall 2025.
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Tails of...
