The Girl of the Sea of Cortez

The Girl of the Sea of Cortez

Author: Peter Benchley

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2013-08-20

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0345544137

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Peter Benchley’s fascination with the sea and its magnificent inhabitants inspired such classic novels as Jaws and The Deep, making him the preeminent author of ocean adventure and suspense. The Girl of the Sea of Cortez was his most heartfelt, cherished story of the relationship between man and the sea, both those that live in it and those who love it. On an island in the Gulf of California, an intrepid young woman named Paloma carries a special legacy from her father—a deep understanding of the sea and a sixth sense about the need to protect it. Every day, Paloma paddles her tiny boat into the ocean and anchors over a seamount—a submerged volcanic peak sixty feet underwater that is clustered with spectacular sea animals and a wondrous web of marine life. It is there that an astonishing event takes place, when on one of her dives Paloma is shadowed by a manta ray—an animal so large it blocks the sun. She develops an extraordinary relationship with this luminous, gentle creature, but instinctively knows its existence is a secret she must fiercely protect. Benchley’s novel paints a poignant picture of humanity’s precarious relationship with the ocean, which unfolds alongside a heartrending story of familial bonds, often revealing that the ignorance of man is far more dangerous than the sea. Full of beauty, danger, and adventure, The Girl of the Sea of Cortez is triumphant—a novel to fall in love with. Praise for The Girl of the Sea of Cortez “It’s hard not to compare Benchley’s tale . . . with Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea.”—The Christian Science Monitor “Charming.”—The New York Times Book Review “For a hot summer’s day, The Girl of the Sea of Cortez is the next best thing to looking through a clear face mask into blue water swimming with fish.”—United Press International


Vaquita

Vaquita

Author: Brooke Bessesen

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2018-09-11

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1610919319

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"Intrepid conservation detective story." --Nature "A lucid, informed, and gripping account...a must-read." --Science "Passionate...a heartfelt and alarming tale." --Publishers Weekly "Gripping...a well-told and moving tale of environmentalism and conservation." --Kirkus "Compelling." --Library Journal In 2006, vaquita, a diminutive porpoise making its home in the Upper Gulf of California, inherited the dubious title of world's most endangered marine mammal. Vaquita have been in decline for decades, dying in illegal gillnets intended for a giant fish, totoaba. Author Brooke Bessesen takes us to the Upper Gulf region in search of answers to a heart-wrenching dilemma. When diplomatic efforts to save the porpoise failed, Bessesen followed a scientific team in a binational effort to capture remaining vaquita and breed them in captivity--the only hope for their survival. In this fast-paced, soul-searing tale, she learned that there are no easy answers when extinction is profitable.


Nowhere Near the Sea of Cortez

Nowhere Near the Sea of Cortez

Author: Jim Harris

Publisher:

Published: 2001-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781930008014

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A phone call reunites Jacob Belmo and his cousin Dorina after fifteen years apart. Dorina has been unjustly imprisoned for shooting a naked lawyer in a parking lot, but Dorina isn't angry. She just wants to talk about old times. The most magical time of t


White Shark

White Shark

Author: Peter Benchley

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 1995-08-15

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9780312955731

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Something even more dangerous than the observed sixteen-foot pregnant great white shark has risen from the depths and is feeding in the waters off the coast of Connecticut.


The Desert Islands of Mexico's Sea of Cortez

The Desert Islands of Mexico's Sea of Cortez

Author: Stewart W. Aitchison

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2010-11-15

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 0816527741

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The desert islands in the Sea of Cortez are little known except to a few intrepid tourists, sailors, and fishermen. Though at first glance these stark islands may appear barren, they are a refuge for an astounding variety of plants and animals. While many of the species are typical of the greater Sonoran Desert region, some are endemic or unique to one or two islands. For example, Isla Santa Catalina is home to the worldÕs only rattlesnake that has lost its ability to grow a rattle. Other islands host nesting birds, such as Isla Rasa, a tiny, flat flow of basalt lava that attracts nearly half a million elegant and royal terns and HeermannÕs gulls each spring. The Desert Islands of MexicoÕs Sea of Cortez is one of the few books devoted to the biogeography of this remarkable part of the world. The book explores the geologic origin of the gulf and its islands, presents some of the basics of island biogeography, details insular lifeÑincluding residents of the intertidal zone Ñand provides a brief outlook for preserving this area. More than a simple guidebook, AitchisonÕs writing will take both actual and armchair travelers through a gripping tale of natural history. Like the rest of our fragile planet, the Sea of Cortez and its islands are threatened by humans. Overfishing has eliminated or greatly diminished many fish stocks, and dams on rivers that once flowed into the gulf prevent certain nutrients from reaching the sea. The tenuousness of this area makes the bookÕs extraordinary photographs and the firsthand descriptions by a well-known teacher, writer, and photographer all the more compelling.


Shark Trouble

Shark Trouble

Author: Peter Benchley

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0812966333

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Master storyteller Benchley ("Jaws") combines high adventure with down-to-earth advice in a book that is at once a thriller and a valuable book about being safe in, on, under, and around the shark infested ocean.


Rummies

Rummies

Author: Peter Benchley

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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Scott Preston is forced to enter the Banner Clinic for alcoholics where he encounters strange copatients, an heiress disappearance, and murder.


Telling Our Way to the Sea

Telling Our Way to the Sea

Author: Aaron Hirsh

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-08-06

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1429947934

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A luminous and revelatory journey into the science of life and the depths of the human experience By turns epic and intimate, Telling Our Way to the Sea is both a staggering revelation of unraveling ecosystems and a profound meditation on our changing relationships with nature—and with one another. When the biologists Aaron Hirsh and Veronica Volny, along with their friend Graham Burnett, a historian of science, lead twelve college students to a remote fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, they come upon a bay of dazzling beauty and richness. But as the group pursues various threads of investigation—ecological and evolutionary studies of the sea, the desert, and their various species of animals and plants; the stories of local villagers; the journals of conquistadors and explorers—they recognize that the bay, spectacular and pristine though it seems, is but a ghost of what it once was. Life in the Sea of Cortez, they realize, has been reshaped by complex human ideas and decisions—the laws and economics of fishing, property, and water; the dreams of developers and the fantasies of tourists seeking the wild; even efforts to retrieve species from the brink of extinction—all of which have caused dramatic upheavals in the ecosystem. It is a painful realization, but the students discover a way forward. After weathering a hurricane and encountering a rare whale in its wake, they come to see that the bay's best chance of recovery may in fact reside in our own human stories, which can weave a compelling memory of the place. Glimpsing the intricate and ever-shifting web of human connections with the Sea of Cortez, the students comprehend anew their own place in the natural world—suspended between past and future, teetering between abundance and loss. The redemption in their difficult realization is that as they find their places in a profoundly altered environment, they also recognize their roles in the path ahead, and ultimately come to see one another, and themselves, in a new light. In Telling Our Way to the Sea, Hirsh's voice resounds with compassionate humanity, capturing the complex beauty of both the marine world he explores and the people he explores it with. Vibrantly alive with sensitivity and nuance, Telling Our Way to the Sea transcends its genre to become literature.


Jaws

Jaws

Author: Peter Benchley

Publisher:

Published: 2017-09-07

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781509860166

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A special edition of Jaws by Peter Benchley reissued with a bright retro design to celebrate Pan's 70th anniversary. It was just another day in the life of a small Atlantic resort until the terror from the deep came to prey on unwary holiday makers. The first sign of trouble - a warning of what was to come - took the form of a young woman's body, or what was left of it, washed up on the long, white stretch of beach . . . A summer of terror had begun. Peter Benchley's Jaws first appeared in 1974. It has sold over twenty million copies around the world, creating a legend that refuses to die - it's never safe to go back in the water . . .


The Peter Benchley Collection

The Peter Benchley Collection

Author: Peter Benchley

Publisher: Reader's Digest

Published: 2012-10-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781606525500

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The Peter Benchley Collection Three exciting novels of danger and adventure Peter Benchley took the reading world by storm with the publication of Jaws, the first of his megathrillers that not only kept readers on the edge of their seats (and away from the water), but also were regularly turned into blockbuster movies. Here are three of his most memorable. Jaws A great white shark terrorizes a Long Island beach community. One of the scariest, most thrilling novels ever written. Beast Benchley returns to the rollercoaster excitement of his first novel, only this time the villain is a giant squid threatening the island of Bermuda. The Girl of the Sea of Cortez Benchley’s most well-reviewed book. A fable about man's complicated relationship with the sea, highlighting the author’s dedication to protecting the marine environment—while still telling a corker of a story.