Tim Baker

After Kathmandu announced the acquisition of Rip Curl, Tim did a magnificent job bringing “The Rip Curl Story” to life at our Kathmandu management conference. He was inspiring, full of humour and very knowledgeable sharing the essence of Rip Curl and its founders. The entire management team – around 70 team members – had a great evening listening to Tim. We are even more excited about partnering up with an iconic brand like Rip Curl after Tim’s presentation.
Group CEO
Kathmandu Holdings

Asia Pacific Writers and Translators (APWT) were honoured to host Tim Baker as one of our Feature Five authors at our inaugural event staged in 2019 in Macau. Tim delivered a knockout keynote speech Saltwater Diplomacy which chronicled the cross cultural interactions (for better or worse) surfing has generated in the Asia Pacific. His speech was eloquent and inspiring and an event highlight for many of our members. Tim has the rare talent of being able distill complex ideas and research into an accessible and entertaining ride. He draws people into the narrative and takes them on a journey that feels rich with colour, anecdote and story. We now consider him part of the APWT family.
Executive Director
APWT

Tim has a genuine interest in helping young people. He engages our students through his relaxed presence. His workshops are well liked by students and staff.
Morayfield State High School

Tim has a quiet aura about him that invites people to lean in and listen. On the morning of his environmental performance work, (m)ocean, he called together a crew of incredibly talented free surfers, musicians and arts workers who stilled their internal oceans and did what Tim asked them to do for a whole afternoon: perform in the water and on the land. And they did. He has that effect on people.
Artist, Director
Not Yet It's Difficult

This is no ordinary man-gets-cancer-finds-hope story. It’s a raw and unflinching revelation of our fallibility and weakness in the face of nature. It’s at once an inoculation against false positivism, but a tonic for realists for may need assurance that life goes on, though death may beckon. It’s a book you’ll find hard to stop reading.
CEO
Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia

An important conversation by a marvellous wordsmith.
The Weekend Australian Review, Best Books of 2022

Patting the Shark is ferociously brave writing. Nothing is off limits … Probably the most important thing Tim Baker will ever write. It’s not just a book for the owners of prostate glands: just about everybody cares about somebody who owns a prostate gland. And the lessons in Patting the Shark go much further: lessons about acceptance and courage and how medicine works, and the value of family and health. This is indispensable reading, from one of our greats.
Surfing World

Other men have written about their experiences with prostate cancer, but Tim’s book is a cut above. In particular, I appreciated his ability to, on the one hand, express his understandable grief and grievances, while on the other hand highlighting a kind of optimism about being able to carry on regardless … It stands beside other classics of the genre such as: Anti Cancer and When Breath Becomes Air.
Registered Psychologist
Royal Melbourne Hospital

I laughed, I cried, I laughed again. Not going to lie, I was a blubbering mess before I finished. Rarely have I ever read the cancer journey told with an honesty and candour borne not of the need to get it off the chest but the need to share it in the common good, because much of what Bakes writes, particularly concerning the declining sexuality of the cancer sufferer, is not stuff we really know about. It’s not easy to read, but it is compelling, and only a writer of Tim Baker’s calibre could have made it so.
Noosa Today

Thanks for highlighting what experts, despite being aware of, tend not to focus on. Speaks volumes about the need to involve patients and care givers at all fronts when managing this disease … You will touch many lives in India where more than 70% of men with prostate cancer need ADT (androgen deprivation therapy).
Tate Memorial Centre, Mumbai

‘Buddhism teaches us that our life’s work is to prepare for death, yet for most of us it is the homework we put off until the past minute. A cancer diagnosis is a wakeup call to do your homework.’ And that is what Tim Baker has done. Diligently, courageously, candidly. His story has much to offer and inspire those with a terminal illness, and anyone who wants to confront their mortality and live more fully.
The Sydney Morning Herald, non-fiction pick of the week

This is an exceptionally important article and is beautifully articulated. Thank you, Tim Baker, for the important reflection. Have eagerly purchased the book. I’d encourage all of my medical oncology colleagues to read this.
Medical oncologist, on Patting The Shark extract on The Conversation website

The Audible edition is brilliant. Tim does a beaut job with exactly the right intonation. My husband has been crying while we listen (he hasn’t wept since our son was born) and I find myself palming away hot tears regularly. But it's really, really funny, too. The humour is uniquely Australian and has given rise to belly laughs in every chapter. This is a brilliant, important book. In every chapter are very deep truths about what it means to be human. Can't recommend it highly enough. Thank you, Tim.
Madelaine Dickie
Award-winning author

Patting The Shark is a powerful and inspiring book … An honest and confronting account of facing your mortality and working out what really matters in your life. Essential reading.
Canberra Weekly

I wanted to say thank-you for your honesty. My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 51. He is now 60. Not only do men need to feel they are not alone, but your description of stresses within a relationship was spot on… Well done on writing your brave story.
Reader

Media coverage this week on prostate cancer survivor Tim Baker’s amazing book Patting The Shark has meant doctors are being inundated with requests for prostate cancer screening via blood test for PSA levels. Great stuff. Go Tim.
Psychologist, publisher
Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Australian Academic Press