When it comes to skateboarding, I am not entirely clueless about the world of it. This is a great, short read, not too academically written, so the language was easy to comprehend. Therefore, it can be suitable perhaps for those who possibly don't have any knowledge about skateboarding. Yet, it gave a good overview of various viewpoints of different perspectives within the scene.

Like most Object Lesson books from the past 18 months, this one comes with a COVID apology. There is a short explanation that originally the author Jonathon Russell Clark planned to travel the world talking about the transformative power of the skateboard. This probable financial loss was abated; instead, he tells the story of Skateboarding through five people (culled from copious Zoom interviews). This feels like a more manageable, more Object Lesson style project. It's a bit of a pity then that the bits around the interviews, the history parts, and the idea of shared community is less persuasive than the personalities (and the choices of those personalities perhaps leave something to be desired).

The thesis of the book is that skateboarding is the best hobby ever because it teaches us about failure. There is no reason to learn a trick except for personal satisfaction and bragging rights to your friends (or global YouTube audience). But mastering a trick requires hours and hours of repetitive failure. Fine, there is something in this. But it is also true of nearly all physical activity, from winter sports to dancing and snooker. There also seems to be a leaf taken from the "Football" Object Lesson book to talk about community and universality - which is considerably undermined by all the interview subjects being American. His five subjects show a particular skew on modern Skateboarding too, there's a photographer, a YouTube skate news comedian and an influencer. The last one is particularly problematic in as much as she is primarily a fashion influencer skater, and for all the anti-sexism Clark tries to pedal to suggest skating is inclusive it probably would have been better to include a skater better known for her skills (or even talk about a film like Skate Kitchen). The book feels uncomfortable around race too, its final subject Gary Rogers is Black but the book slides this in via a comparison to Dave Chapelle, and it's never an actual topic of conversation. The most successful interview - with Skateboarding mainstay Mark Waters (who sadly passed before the book was finished) did make me wish the book was entirely by or about him, a fascinating character who skated worked in retail, and tirelessly promoted it.

Skateboard ended up being one of my least favourite Object Lessons. Partially due to some of the decisions made above, but also partially due to what felt like a defensive stance. Clark is right to identify the problems within the outsider image cultivated by skate culture. He doesn't quite delve into the implicit Incel suggestion, but often replicates some of these habits (there are non-interview swears in his text which jar with his attempt at a more objective style). I learned quite a bit, but I felt what I learned was very skewed to a particular history of what is now competitive skating. ANd what I discovered was less fun than I expected.

One of the things I have loved about the first couple of Object Lessons that i've read was feeling like I had an entry into a subject I otherwise knew little about, or an extra dimension of knowledge that I was already familiar with. I hoped for the same from Skateboard... but I was a bit disappointed.

I definitely did get information about an otherwise unknown topic - I know next to nothing about skateboards themselves, their history, the culture around them, or even the people involved. And this was the problem. This book is not written for the complete novice. There are descriptions of tricks with no explanation for what they mean - and the few times there is an explanation, it's still deeply technical and is no help at all. There are some references to people involved in the scene in a variety of ways with no explanation about why I should care for their opinion, and a few other bits and pieces where I was left bewildered. So that wasn't a lot of fun.

More positively, and as with other books I've read in the series, this is quite a personal book. The author is present a lot - relating his experiences of skateboarding as a child - and also being transparent about the process of putting together the book. The fact that it's designed around five interviews, and that there is some research lacking thanks to Covid, for instance. I like this aspect a lot; I like the personal touch, because it differentiates this from a standard 'history of'. And if you want one of those, Clark lists several such books in the Intro, and has a select bibliography as well. I was interested in the fact it was built around five different people, and interviews with them, was quite a nice way of organising the book. I appreciated that one of them was female, and that Clark spends quite a lot of time condemning the people and the attitudes that have given this specific woman and skateboarding women more generally grief... although the fact that this chapter was more about aesthetics and fashion, and how this woman is contributing to that aspect, still felt playing into the patriarchy. Can't win, eh.

Overall, I suspect I'm just the wrong audience for this book. That's fine - it happens. It's just not what I expected from this series.

Many books in this series are hampered by them coming from some horrendously 'woke' ultra-left academe position, demanding the author whinge about race, gender and any other kind of identity billhooks at the earliest opportunity, and often instead of the subject at hand. This book doesn't do that – thankfully. But it does suffer still, in that of all the many books I've read over the past years from this series, this is talking shop too much. Non-smokers could read the "Cigarette Lighter" volume, those who had gone "nose-blind" could check out "Perfume", and I hope to God when I turn to "Sewer" it's not going to demand an intimate knowledge – but this seemed to be talking to those who know the lingo, the people, the lifestyle. No it is not as exclusive as a niche hobbyist publication, solely for a few boarders (and why are they skaters and not boarders in the first place?!), but it is not as accessible to all as I would have required. This entry to the series that should be called "books about everyday subjects you never expected to read about" still has the potential to frustrate as oppose to elucidate, then.

Before I read 'Skateboard', I considered myself to be quite clued up on the history of skating thanks to various House of Vans documentaries. This book helped widen my knowledge with anecdotal and factual evidence from those who lived the scene.

I devoured this in one afternoon and loved the fun, upbeat nature of this book. It was truly a delight to read. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to know how skateboarding came from the backstreets and undergrounds into what it is today: an Olympic sport.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this title in return for an honest review.