Peter Benchley
Peter Bradford Benchley was an American author best known for writing the novel Jaws and co-writing the screenplay for its highly successful film adaptation. The success of the book led to many publishers commissioning books about mutant rats, rabid dogs and the like threatening communities. The subsequent film directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by Benchley is generally acknowledged as the first summer blockbuster. Benchley also wrote The Deep and The Island which were also adapted into films. Benchley was from a literary family. He was the son of author Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of Algonquin Round Table founder Robert Benchley. His younger brother, Nat Benchley, is a writer and actor. Peter Benchley was an alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University. After graduating from college, he worked for The Washington Post, then as an editor at Newsweek and a speechwriter in the White House. He developed the idea of a man-eating shark terrorising a community after reading of a fisherman Frank Mundus catching a 4,550 pound great white shark off the coast of Long Island in 1964. He also drew some material from the tragic Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. His reasonably successful second novel, The Deep, is about a honeymooning couple discovering two sunken treasures on the Bermuda reefs—17th century Spanish gold and a fortune in World War Two-era morphine—who are subsequently targeted by a drug syndicate. This 1976 novel is based on Benchley's chance meeting in Bermuda with diver Teddy Tucker while writing a story for National Geographic. Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for the 1977 film release, along with Tracy Keenan Wynn and an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz. Directed by Peter Yates and starring Robert Shaw, Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, The Deep was the second-highest grossing release of 1977 after Star Wars, although its box office tally fell well short of Jaws. The Island, published in 1979, was a story of descendants of 17th century pirates who terrorize pleasure craft in the Caribbean, leading to the Bermuda Triangle mystery. Benchley again wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. But the movie version of The Island, starring Michael Caine and David Warner, failed at the box office when released in 1980. During the 1980s, Benchley wrote three novels that did not sell as well as his previous works. However, Girl of the Sea of Cortez, a beguiling John Steinbeck-type fable about man's complicated relationship with the sea, was far and away his best reviewed book and has attracted a considerable cult following since its publication. Sea of Cortez signposted Benchley's growing interest in ecological issues and anticipated his future role as an impassioned and intelligent defender of the importance of redressing the current imbalance between human activities and the marine environment. Q Clearance published in 1986 was written from his experience as a staffer in the Johnson White House. Rummies (aka Lush), which appeared in 1989, is a semi-autobiographical work, loosely inspired by the Benchley family's history of alcohol abuse. While the first half of the novel is a relatively straightforward (and harrowing) account of a suburbanite's descent into alcoholic hell, the second part—which takes place at a New Mexico substance abuse clinic—veers off into wildly improbable thriller-type territory. He returned to nautical themes in 1991's Beast written about a giant squid threatening Bermuda. Beast was brought to the small screen as a made-for-TV movie in 1996, under the slightly altered title The Beast. His next novel, White Shark, was published in 1994. The story of a Nazi-created genetically engineered shark/human hybrid failed to achieve popular or critical success.
19 Books Written
When presidential speechwriter Timothy Burnham progresses from president's favorite to intimate advisor with Q clearance, giving him access to atomic energy secrets, he becomes the target of Soviet spies
Drawing on more than three decades of experience writing about sharks and other marine animals, the bestselling author of Jaws combines high adventure with practical information in a book that is at once a thriller and a valuable guide to being safe in, on, under, and around the sea.“Shark attacks on human beings generate a tremendous amount of media coverage,” Benchley writes, “part
Three novels--Jaws, Beast, and The Girl of the Sea of Cortez--by one of the masters of the thriller genre and the author of the Deep.
Two men and a boy, on the boat they charter to game-fishermen, are lazing away the hottest hours of a Caribbean day when they notice a cameo which appears to be adrift. They manoeuvre it alongside their boat, one of the men reaches to pull back the tarpaulin which conceals whatever it contains—and the reader receives a jolting shock which reminds him of those famous first pages of Jaws.<br
From the bestselling author of Jaws comes a firsthand guide to one of the most feared—and often misunderstood— sharks!In direct and accessible prose, Peter Benchley sets the record straight about the many types of sharks (including the ones that pose a genuine threat to us), the behavior of sharks and other sea creatures we fear, the odds against an attack, and how to improve them ev
Through engaging essays, powerful photos, and compelling facts, Ocean Planet explores the role that the vast and beautiful seas play in our lives. Published on the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, this book will change the way readers think about the sea around them. 115 illustrations, 86 in color.
"Makes the shark from Jaws look like a pet goldfish..." —USA WeekendStraight from the cutting edge of science and the logs of ancient mariners comes an immense horror—a creature that rises up from the well of an ocean gone mad with an insatiable hunger and an endless lust to kill. One man leads a harrowing struggle to defeat the beast amid a threatened Bermuda paradise. H
At a small marine institute off the coast of Connecticut, only marine biologist Simon Chase realizes that a sixteen-foot pregnant Great White is feeding in the area. But even Simon doesn't know that a far deadlier creature is about to come out of the deep and threaten everything he cares for. A creature whose malevolence is unthinkable. Whose need to feed is insatiable. And whose relentless hunt f
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 wondro
A young couple go to Bermuda on their honeymoon. They dive on the reefs offshore, looking for the wreck of a sunken ship. What they find lures them into a strange and increasingly terrifying encounter with past and present, a struggle for salvage and survival along the floor of the sea, in the deep.
Scott Preston, a distinguished New York editor and alcoholic, enters the Banner Clinic, a celebrated drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, and finds himself surrounded by a bizarre and colorful group of fellow patients
The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again—or for the first time!
Reader's Digest Condensed Books; 1983 #M, Volume 147: The Girl of the Sea of Cortez / Jedder's Land / Run Before the Wind / Impressionist: A Novel of Mary Cassatt
by Peter Benchley
Rating: 4.1 ⭐
Volume 147 - MThe Girl of the Sea of Cortez - Peter BenchleyJedder's Land - Maureen O'DonoghueRun Before the Wind - Stuart WoodsImpressionist: A Novel of Mary Cassatt - Joan King
The Peter Benchley Collection: Reader's Digest Condensed Books Premium Editions
by Peter Benchley
Rating: 4.1 ⭐
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
This eBook bundle includes two acclaimed books by Peter Jaws, the classic suspense novel—with bonus content—that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie, and Shark Trouble, a fascinating nonfiction chronicle of Benchley’s thrilling diving adventures and heart-stopping encounters as he met and studied sharks in their natural habitats for more than thirty years. <br /
Reader's Digest Condensed Books 1974: Jaws / A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax / The Fearful Void / Pied Piper / End Play
by Peter Benchley
Rating: 3.0 ⭐
ACE 0340185333 (ISBN13: 9780340185339)
In this title, which combines real-life stories and practical advice, Peter Benchley draws on more than 30 years of experience on and under the water, to help the reader approach the ocean and its inhabitants with the understanding and respect they deserve. He describes the many types of sharks, and the few that pose a genuine threat to man, what is and what is not known about shark behaviour, the