“Casey’s sharktastic bestseller The Devil’s Teeth announced the debut of a powerful voice in adventure writing, and her follow-up does not disappoint… [Her] writing on wave forces and maritime disasters is masterful.”
—Outside Magazine

“A captivating hybrid—an intro to the mind-melting physics of waves and a ride-along with the scientists and surfers who chase after them…Fascinating.“ —Men’s Journal

“A breath-snatching thrill ride.” —Elle

For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan rogue waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories—waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence emerged, oceanographers realized something scary really is brewing in the planet's waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea—including several that approached 100 feet.
As scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon, others view the giant waves as the ultimate challenge. These are extreme surfers who fly around the world in search of the ocean's most destructive monsters. The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to ride terrifyingly large waves of 70 and 80 feet—and higher. Casey follows this unique tribe of men as they seek to conquer the holy grail of their sport, a 100-foot wave.
In this mesmerizing account, the exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists' urgent efforts to understand the annihilating power of waves—from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740 foot-wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast to the bigger and bolder waves of the future that climate change seems destined to bring.
Like Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious.

About The Author
SUSAN CASEY is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks. She served as creative director of Outside Magazine, where she was part of the editorial team that developed the stories behind the bestselling books Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, as well as the 2002 movie Blue Crush. The Toronto-born Casey was also recently named Editor-in-Chief of O, the Oprah Magazine.

Advance Praise

“Reading THE WAVE is the closest most of us will ever come to the sensation of riding, or even seeing, one of these towering monsters of the sea. It’s exhilarating, astonishing, and, not infrequently, terrifying. Brace yourself.”
—Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt

“At once scary and fun, THE WAVE surprises at every turn.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

“Something is stewing in our seas, and Susan Casey—traveling, and in some cases swimming, all around the world—is eager to find out what it is. Both a rollicking look at the ocean's growing freakishness and a troubling examination of our ailing planet, THE WAVE gives new meaning to the term ‘immersion reporting.’”
—Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail