During the earliest years of post revival surfing, the sport slumbered in the subconscious of our society as a little known, even less understood, game that Polynesian peoples played in the waves. For neophytes who witnessed a wave being ridden, it seemed an unlikely harnessing of wild natural forces, beckoning in its grace and playfulness yet somehow distant and unfathomable. As an independent culture grew up around that activity, detached from the surrounding mainstream, and nurtured by a deeply ingrained receptor in the human spirit somehow titillated by the ride, the numbers of surfers slowly grew increasingly noticeable. But even as our numbers grew, the ride itself remained an intangible. Riding waves left no trace, produced no result, and depleted nothing. Our wake disappeared behind us. Our footprints were washed from the sand. No residue of value from what we did was left to prove it ever happened. Surfers held significant rides in their memories and sometimes stories of particularly epic days were passed down via oral history, until they too finally faded away. 

In the face of that intangible void a literature began to emerge at first describing surfing to those who hadn't seen it. The initial non-Hawaiians to encounter Hawaii made log entries that told of the Islanders riding waves and explained their crafts and described their movements with those of the waves. Alexander Hume Ford wrote of surfing to lure visitors.  Jack London added his experiences to the sparsely recorded lore. A smattering of articles continued to appear in various periodicals, and in 1935, Tom Blake's photos of surfing in Waikiki appeared in National Geographic. In 1937, a rotogravure section in the Los Angeles Times featured color photos of surfing, an event that struck California 's surf tribe as a benchmark in societal recognition. Beginning in 1936 and continuing to 1940, Doc Ball began producing a series of illustrated newsletters for the Palos Verdes Surf Club entitled Ye Old Spindrift News, written, captioned and illustrated by Doc using small individual prints of his photos which he, glued in place on each copy, he distributed these charming newsletters to club members, in the process, creating what was essentially our sport's first periodical surf publication. In 1946 Doc Ball would also produce and distribute to his friends 500 copies of a hardbound book of his surf photos, titled California Surfriders. Along this timeline of notable publishings came Eugene Burdick's novel, The Ninth Wave which described pre-war surfing at Paddleboard Cove in the 1930s.  Still, mentions were infrequent enough that they were big news among surfers when they occurred. Over time, each one added to the illusion of a bit more tangible presence for surfing. By the late 1950s, the sport had grown enough to spawn attempts at launching formal periodicals devoted to its coverage. Surfing – The voice of the Surfing World and Reef magazine were two such early, short lived attempts, each having worthwhile elements but with their timing slightly premature. In 1960, Surfer magazine appeared, followed by a fleet of competitors including Surfing Illustrated, International Surfing and the procreative Surf Guide. The fad/boom phase of surfing that began with the release of the movie Gidget in 1959 saw the U. S. surfing population swell into the millions, finally creating the demand for a significant body of surfing media of all types to be produced over the following decades including cult documentaries and Hollywood films, magazines, books, articles, fine art and television programming. In recent years, the graying of those stoked legions of teenaged "boomers" of the 60s has created a demand for the increasing numbers of books on surfing which are new being published.