Visit the D.G.Wills Books YouTube Channel, featuring past appearances by Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Maureen Dowd, Freeman Dyson, Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Billy Collins, Iris Chang, Patricia Neal with Stephen Michael Shearer, Edward Albee, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Yunte Huang, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, and Senator Byron L. Dorgan.
D.G.Wills Books events on TSN: THE SCIENCE NETWORK:
- V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell Tale Brain, The Science Network
- Quantum Man, Laurence Krauss, The Science Network
D.G.Wills Books events on UCSD TV:
D.G.Wills Books events on Book TV, C-SPAN:
- Yunte Huang, Charlie Chan, C-Span
- Dave Zirin, Welcome to the Terror Dome, C-Span
- Prof. Sanford Lakoff, Max Lerner: Pilgrim in the Promised Land, C-Span
Upcoming Events at D.G.Wills Books
Renowned surfing historian and editor
Chris Ahrens
will discuss his new book
GOOD THINGS LOVE WATER:
Expanded stories & 50+ full-page photographs by the world’s foremost surf photographers,
Monday, September 7th, 7 P.M
In 1972, Chris Ahrens arrived in Australia with a surfboard and not much else. He was broke, but had a story in his head that he thought someone might pay for; sold it for $50, and that was that. Over the next three decades, Ahrens became one of surf journalism’s most enduring voices — contributing to Surfer Magazine, Surfing Magazine, The Surfer’s Journal, Risen Magazine, and virtually every platform that mattered in the genre. Features, profiles, cultural essays, the kind of work that required someone who could surf the wave and then sit down and write honestly about what it meant. He settled in Oceanside, California, close enough to the ocean that the instinct was always there: get in the water first, then tell the story. His first book, Good Things Love Water, appeared in 1994, and more books followed — surf fiction, travel guides, short story collections. A contract with Harper One to co-author the memoir of Christian Hosoi, the legendary skateboarder and surfer whose story of addiction, incarceration, and faith became one of the most compelling sports memoirs of its era. Then seven years as Editor in Chief of Risen Magazine put Ahrens at the helm of a nationally distributed culture and faith publication — conducting celebrity interviews, shaping editorial vision. In 2015 as writer and director of D.O.P.E., he helped bring a story of skateboarding culture, addiction, and redemption to the screen, a film that earned festival recognition. In 2025 Windansea: Life. Death. Resurrection was published — a full history of La Jolla’s legendary surf break that is also a portrait of a community and a culture that Ahrens has spent his life inside of; forty years of reporting and relationship in a single definitive volume.
Chris Ahrens’ earlier works include Good Things Love Water (1994 edition); The Surfer’s Travel Guide: A Handbook to Surf Paradise; Joyrides: Surf Stories, Volume Two; Kelea’s Gift: Surf Stories; Twilight in the City of Angels; Behold What is Greater Than Thyself: Surf Stories; Alphaphoenicia: A Gangster’s Fairytale; and his award-winning skateboarding film D.O.P.E. Ahrens has also served as Emcee for the Legendary Scripps/UCSD Surf Competition, 1994-Present; Emcee (and Jousting event founder) Switchfoot BroAm, 2006-2020; Emcee, World Longboarding Surfing Championships, Malibu, Ca. 1995; and Emcee, World Longboarding Surfing Championships, Haleiwa, Hawaii 1994.
Previous Events at D.G.Wills Books
