GREAT SHARK STORIES

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1978

The shark was not an accident. He had come up from deep down in the water as the dark cloud of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile deep sea. He had come up so fast and absolutely without caution that he broke the surface of the blue water and was in the sun."" That's enough to drive you back to The Old Man and the Sea from whence it was excerpted for the present collection of non-fiction and fiction shark pieces by such greats as Hemingway, Jacques-lyes Cousteau, William Beebe, Thor Heyerdahl, Peter Matthiessen, the anonymous biblical author of Jonah, and lesser lights like Peter Benchley, Arthur C. Clarke, Zane Grey, and editor Valerie Taylor. The non-fiction includes the filming of screen star Bruce, the great white Carcharodon carcharias of Jaws: live footage shot off Australia's Dangerous Reef was intercut with the performance of a mechanical shark off Martha's Vineyard. The pieces are written for sheer adventure, for scientific study and observation of shark behavior, and are about divers and sharks, sea giants, catching sharks, game fishing for sharks, sharks that attack, and sharks that eat the stuffing out of your chair as you sit reading about them in the dead vast and middle of a nippy night, a prickle going up your arm, your back, your vulnerable parts. Written for love, not gore.

Pub Date: June 1, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION