I have been OBSESSED with reading Jaws this summer. I was getting so disappointed because I had such a hard time finding it. I went to Barnes and Noble, visited some used book stores and at any store that seemed to have a book section .. with no luck. I know that I could have just ordered it off of Amazon but I like to buy locally as much as possible.
Recently my daughter told me about an app called Libby - which is connected to the library system. Well, I did not find the book but I did find the audio version. I am not a big audio book person due to my mind wondering and I find myself half way through a chapter thinking 'who is this guy' or 'wait who done it?'. But I thought what do I do lose .. if I do not like it I will go on Amazon or simply choose a different book to obsess about.
Man am I glad I listened. It was so captivating. The narrator did the different voices and the story line was a bit more in depth than the movie .. it was just a great summer read [or listen].
I won't even bother with giving you the premise since the movie follows closely to the book. However, I will say a few things about the book and the man. It was written in 1974 by American author Peter Benchley and who passed away recently in 2006. He is the son of Nathaniel Benchley who was also an American writer of children's books and Novels and incidentally had a couple of his works turned into movies. Jaws went on to be on the New York best seller's list for about 43 weeks. The author also was a conservationist. He was a spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund and worked with WildAid, traveling to teach about sharks and to try to warn against the practice of killing sharks for their fins, a delicacy especially popular in Asia. Peter's wife has said "Many of the letters he got were from people who read 'Jaws' as a kid and were captivated by it, and who then went on to become marine biologists or who were teachers who would focus some of their time on the ocean. Maybe when 'Jaws' first came out people were scared of the water. But the next generation found a great adventure story, and many of them wanted to learn about the ocean. That thrilled Peter."
Love it or hate it .. for the past 44 years this book [and movie] has impacted the way we see the ocean.
