Search  for anything...
NA

The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life

  • Based on 85 reviews
Condition: New
Checking for the best price...
$20.89 Why this price?
New Year Deal · 23% off was $27.00

Buy Now, Pay Later

As low as $5 / mo
  • – 4-month term
  • – No impact on credit
  • – Instant approval decision
  • – Secure and straightforward checkout

Ready to go? Add this product to your cart and select a plan during checkout.

Payment plans are offered through our trusted finance partners Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, Apple Pay, and PayTomorrow. No-credit-needed leasing options through Acima may also be available at checkout.

Learn more about financing & leasing here.

Free shipping on this product

FREE 30-day refund/replacement

To qualify for a full refund, items must be returned in their original, unused condition. If an item is returned in a used, damaged, or materially different state, you may be granted a partial refund.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.

Availability: Only 3 left in stock, order soon!
Fulfilled by Amazon
Arrives Thursday, Jan 8
Order within 1 hour and 15 minutes
Available payment plans shown during checkout
Protection Plan Protect Your Purchase
Checking for protection plans...

Recently Viewed

Description

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR • Southwest Review • Electric Literature Perfect for fans of Barbarian Days, this memoir in essays follows one man's decade-long quest to uncover the hidden meaning of skateboarding, and explores how this search led unexpectedly to insights on marriage, love, loss, American invention, and growing old. In January 2012, creative writing professor and novelist Kyle Beachy published one of his first essays on skate culture, an exploration of how Nike’s corporate strategy successfully gutted the once- mighty independent skate shoe market. Beachy has since established himself as skate culture's freshest, most illuminating, at times most controversial voice, writing candidly about the increasingly popular and fast-changing pastime he first picked up as a young boy and has continued to practice well into adulthood. What is skateboarding? What does it mean to continue skateboarding after the age of forty, four decades after the kickflip was invented? How does one live authentically as an adult while staying true to a passion cemented in childhood? How does skateboarding shape one's understanding of contemporary American life? Of growing old and getting married? Contemplating these questions and more, Beachy offers a deep exploration of a pastime—often overlooked, regularly maligned—whose seeming simplicity conceals universal truths. THE MOST FUN THING is both a rich account of a hobby and a collection of the lessons skateboarding has taught Beachy—and what it continues to teach him as he strugglesto find space for it as an adult, a professor, and a husband. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing


Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 10, 2021


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538754118


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 15


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.65 x 1.3 x 8.3 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #1,052,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #44 in Skateboarding (Books) #362 in Sports Essays (Books) #8,278 in Women's Biographies


#44 in Skateboarding (Books):


Frequently asked questions

If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is: Thursday, Jan 8

Yes, absolutely! You may return this product for a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.

  • Klarna Financing
  • Affirm Pay in 4
  • Affirm Financing
  • Afterpay Financing
  • PayTomorrow Financing
  • Financing through Apple Pay
Leasing options through Acima may also be available during checkout.

Learn more about financing & leasing here.

Similar Products

Top Amazon Reviews

    • A beautiful memoir for all readers, regardless of your ability to shred
Format: Hardcover
This is a book about skateboarding. It's also a book about marriage. Most crucially, it's a book about love. Kyle Beachy takes us on a kaleidoscopic tour through the history of pastime that is not a sport, whose sole purpose is the anti-hierarchical, the anti-chronological, the anti-corporate: in other words, fun. And it's through the concept of fun -- which for Beachy is not an uncomplicated one, full of plenty of shattered clavicles and shed tears and Lefebvre quotes -- that even the most skate-naïve reader (i.e. me) can learn a thing or two about love, and fear, and the weird heartache of being a dude in the absence of decent role models of masculinity, and nostalgia, and finding compassion in a highly corporatized world. Beachy is a smart and big-hearted writer, and this is a collection of essays you certainly won't want to miss, regardless of your ability to shred. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2025 by Rafael Frumkin
    • Great Memoir—Especially for Skaters
Format: Hardcover
I’m about Beachy’s age, and I’ve been skating since ‘95. I also read a lot of creative nonfiction. This book may not be for someone who’s just looking for a skate history, or someone who expects a book just about skateboarding. But as someone who’s into the craft of memoir, skate culture, and grew up in Beachy’s era—this book is truly excellent. It is fairly academic in some regards—quoting Derrida and writing about DFW (among others)—but it doesn’t feel heavy handed or like he’s trying too hard. I really dig this, and recommend it to anyone who likes memoir—whether you skate or not. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2021 by James Prime
    • The Most Important Book About Skateboarding and Love
Format: Kindle
Somehow there are many books about skateboarding. None of them are in the same league as The Most Fun Thing. On its face, it’s a collection of essays diving into different facets of skating: long, respected pro careers, local video premieres and iconic talents lost too soon. These essays on their own are unquestionably the best essays on their respective topics. The Dylan Rieder essay alone is worth the price of admission. But more than that, the soul of the book is concerned with love: for skateboarding and for a spouse. Both relationships are full of failure. Knowing how to manage and maintain a love to skating or a partner is almost a total mystery, but here that mystery is given a language never before provided. Is your dying dog keeping your marriage together? Do you want to be adored or known? Can you keep skating while your body breaks down? Is quitting really failing? The questions rule and the responses rule harder. Beachy is the first and only author to properly balance the emotional weight of life’s essential passions. Even if you have one, you can’t understand the heart of a skater without reading this book. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2025 by Ted Schmitz
    • Marriage and Skateboarding? It's actually about Being and Time, Space and Movement, Rhythm, Life
Format: Hardcover
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness through skateboarding are the subjects of Kyle Beachy's exceptional book. He goes deep into the mechanics, the culture, the style, and the ethos of skateboarding, like an expert should, but what draws in the reader is the profound vulnerability and empathy he displays. Personally, I am no skater, I know very little about it, but there is so much heart in this book, so much truth, so much raw passion and poetic beauty and true love and obsession, that one is reminded one need not have whaling experience to love Moby-Dick. I love this book. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2021 by Matt Bucher
    • A thoughtful, funny read, whether you skate or not.
Format: Hardcover
Beachy has done a rare and hard thing here: written a book that encapsulates the particular, peculiar, and often hard-to-put-into-words joy, pain, and passion skateboarders feel for what they do, while also making it an accessible read to people that might not get every single skate reference. It’s a loveletter to skateboarding by a lifelong skater, yes, but it’s about so much more than “just skating.” And it’s time well spent whether you roll or not. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2021 by Matty Ballgame
    • For anyone who loves a good read!
Format: Hardcover
Review Image by deborah a hunter02 deborah a hunter02
I’ve never been a skateboarder but a friend said “read it, you’ll love it” and boy was she right! Beachy draws you in to SO much more than his chosen sport, he builds a story of life, love and loss as well as any great writer can, all while celebrating the best (and worst) of his experiences in the community of skateboarding. It’s a rare non-fiction sports writer who can keep the attention of hard-core fiction fans but Beachy succeeds with flying colors! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2021 by deborah a hunter02 deborah a hunter02
    • For whom is reading The Most Fun Thing fun?
Format: Hardcover
Most writing about skateboarding is fairly bad. Non-skaters trying to describe skateboarding is comically atrocious. Skateboarders trying to describe the act of skateboarding tends toward the comically hyperbolic “Thrasher-speak” of face-melting gnarl. Beachy asks searching questions regarding both the culture of skateboarding and the practice of skateboarding. And while there’s a good deal of in-group jargon and topics, I think he manages to explain some of the nuances for a more general audience well. Perhaps best of all: Beachy, better than most, manages to explain with a critical eye and a deep love what skateboarding can mean to an adult as a lifelong pursuit, physically, emotionally, and intellectually to an audience who may have never considered skateboarding anything more than a passing fad or curiosity. If you’re a skateboarder, this book will give you a lot to think about. If you want to try to understand why a skateboarder is a skateboarder, this book may be a good place to start. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2021 by Michael Colson
    • Disjointed collection of philosophy essays
This guy needs an editor, or 9. This is the most disjointed non sequitur book I've ever read. What? You haven't read Nietzsche or Joan Didion? Don't know the definition of fun? (hint: it's not reading this book). There are a few precious pearls in here, but they are well buried within the effort of someone to get tenure. If you're going to write about skating and put it's fun factor into perspective, at least go as far back as the Z boys. This is an absolutely abhorrent, terrible phrasing, all over the map in every successive paragraph book. For fun each evening, I'll read the first paragraph of a chapter to my wife for laughs. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance this is NOT. Yuck and double Yuck. Yeah I skate, still, in my 50's. I'm well read, well educated, and damn well tired of reading this book so far (but I won't quit it, that's not my style). Could have been so good, such a great subject. No way this guy hangs with William Finnegan (Barbarian Days: a surfing life). ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2022 by coochmon

Can't find a product?

Find it on Amazon first, then paste the link below.
Checking for best price...