Book Review: Shark by Paul de Gelder

Paul de Gelder is my favorite shark expert (put a pin in that!) on Shark Week. Former Australian trouble-maker and former member of Australia's underwater demolitions team, Paul had his arm bitten off by a bull shark and his leg mangled to the point of amputation, all on a routine exercise in Sydney Harbor. His life as he knew it was over, and he barely survived his injuries, but instead of fearing sharks or the water, he literally jumped right back in, and learned everything he could about sharks, growing to love and respect the creatures. He joined Shark Week programming, and has been a highlight every year (especially when he's palling around with ABC!), teaching celebrities like Mike Tyson, Rhonda Rousey, and Adam Devine the hows and whys of respecting sharks, and controlling the dives with the shark scientists (in last week's Shark Week, he was awesome in "Monster Hammerheads" - I'm only halfway through last week's shows so I'm hoping for at least one more appearance).

As I said, though, Paul is a "shark expert", like Dickey Chivell, ABC, and Forrest Galante (although Galante could be classified as an "everything expert") - he holds no advanced degrees, he did no theses, he's just an extremely capable person who absolutely loves and studies up on sharks. That's what makes his book Sharks such a mixed bag.

Now, before going on, I should clarify - most of the time, when you hear something is a "mixed bag", it's a euphemism for sucking. In this case, I truly mean it's a mixed bag! On the one hand, there was a lot that I learned about sharks (and keep in mind in seventh grade I had a composition notebook where I classified and drew every known species of shark), particularly about the laws that many countries have that relate to sharks and what works and what doesn't. On the other hand, Paul's not a natural writer, so the book sometimes reads like it was written by me in seventh grade.

The fact that Paul wrote the book with no ghost writer had to be acknowledged as extremely brave - the man knows his limits, and I'm sure he'd be the first to admit that writing's not his strong suit. The fact that he wanted to put down everything he could about his passion no matter how it read is a great feat.

I can't recommend this book to everyone - I'll give it six out of ten hot dogs. But for any fellow Shark Week fans (or fans of sharks in general), this is a surprisingly good read.