Review: The Complete Book of Roller Skating

Ah, second hand book stores. I really should keep out of them – especially when I'm on vacation and will have to carry the books home with me...

On my recent vacation in New Zealand I happened to walk into a second hand book shop, where I chanced upon a book that would seem, at first glance, almost completely useless:

The Complete Book of Roller Skating “by” The Editors of Consumer Guide®, published in 1979. I don't know why I had to buy it, but I did. I don't know why I had to read it, but I did. I don't know why I had to record a passage and use my Mac applications to turn it into a Youtube clip, but I did. Maybe it was the Oh-So-70s font on the cover of the book. Maybe it was the line drawings that seem to illustrate every sporting book of the late 70s and early 80s. Maybe it was the fact that I've never been able to face inline skates and secretly yearn for the days before you had to specify you wanted “quads” when talking to the rental people at the skating rink...

Whatever the reason, I found myself the proud owner of a thirty-year-old book about roller skating – supposedly, the complete book about the subject.

I have to say this book is quite interesting, but possibly for the wrong reasons. I always worry a little when no authors are willing to put their name on something, and the writing of this book is somewhat uneven. Parts of it are instructional, other parts evangelical – and you get the distinct impression that 70% of the book is padding, pure and simple. I have a feeling that they didn't really have enough practical material for more than thirty or forty pages about roller skating, and since two chapters on roller skating and a buyers guide would make for a terribly short “complete” book, they passed the thing around the office to see if anyone could add anything of interest.

Thus you have some passages walking you through the basics of skating backwards, and others waxing lyrical (well, prosaic) about the joys of roller disco. Some parts are surprisingly well written, yet completely pointless. Other parts are just completely pointless. There's a whole chapter dedicated to a “skating into shape” programme which doesn't actually include an exercise programme. They just tell you that skating is a great form of exercise, and so are running, swimming and riding your bike. It's almost as though everyone at the Consumer Guide® office thought an exercise programme was a great idea, but no one knew what one looked like.

I have to admit, though, I did learn a lot about roller skates and roller skating that I didn't know before. I just have no idea if any of it is still “true”. After all, truth has a use-by date, and a lot of things have happened in the world of strapping-wheels-to-your-feet since 1979. Take roller disco, for example. There's a whole chapter on roller disco in the book – including the clothes you could wear to the disco in order to look really cool. The opening passage is a brilliant piece of writing (that's the bit I've recorded, if you want to hear it - it's at the bottom of this post), but I'm not sure I'll ever use the advice they provide...

This book is, well, history. A flippant piece of throw away history that I doubt even The Editors of the Consumer Guide® expected to sell more than a few copies before being pulped. An attempt to capture a fad and jump on a bandwagon while the jumping was good.

I'm keeping it, though. That buyers guide at the end was actually kind of useful.