San Joaquin, CA Peter Benchley died

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060213/en_movies_eo/18345

Kinda bummed about that one, he was a great author

 

Agreed. Either in the winter of '71 or the begining of '72 I bought the paperback of Jaws and read it in two days. I began that evening and found the opening chapters spellbinding. After a couple of hours I had to stop but the next day there was no school (maybe a weekend) and I began reading midmorning. I could not stop and almost finished the book until I was forced to quit by my parents. The next morning I finished and lived with the imagery for months.

I wanted to learn more about sharks and then the movie came out and I was awed. The shark did not bother me as much as the floating head.

I read his other works but none ever affected me like Jaws. There are still passages from the book I remember.

He will be missed.

 

I started reading Stephen King and Clive Barker novels when I was in 4th grade, and my teacher thought I was "Not Okay" because I was obsessed with that stuff at such an early age. I remember stumbling upon a paperback copy of Jaws at a yard sale in Visalia, and I had always LOVED the movie, so I thought I'd give it a whirl, and I loved it. I too read a good amount of other Peter Benchley books and felt the same way: they just couldn't live up to even the first chapter of Jaws. To this day, I think the first chapter of Jaws is one of my all time favorites of ANY book.

On the bonus materials for the Jaws dvd I liked the interviews with Benchely a lot, saying that he didn't know what to call it, and almost called it ,"Jaws Of Leviathan", which I still think is quite funny.

 

I also read JAWS at a fairly young age, and it is definitely one of my favorite movies, but I will remember Peter Benchley most for his National Geographic articles and especially for his work to protect his most famous villian, carcharadon carcharias, and all sharks for that matter.

I love sharks, and it's always fun to learn more about them from someone equally curious and caring about what can be a pretty fearsome looking critter.

Nothing made me happier than seeing a new NG article written by Benchley with pictures by his longtime associate, and underwater photographer extraordinaire, David Doubillet. I'm sad that I won't get to read any more of them.

 

i read "jaws" at a rather impressionable age, and it pretty much put the icing on the cake of a childhood trauma regarding water... still not really comfortable in water i can't see the bottom of...

and i was a big fan of "the deep"...