This is a timeless book in so many ways. There is the story of exploration and finding things out about the natural world. Eugenie Clark was an explorer and her story is fascinating. Her descriptions of ocean life and the people she meets are outstanding. There is also the story of a young woman overcoming incredible odds. Why? Clark was a young woman competing in (what was then)a man's world. She is also half Japanese, working for the Navy immediately after WW II. The book takes her from New York to the South Pacific and the Red Sea. What a job, Hitchhiking around the world studying fish. Look for the stories about the South Seas spear fisherman and the Egyptian marine biology professor. You feel like you are there with her. After reading it I was a little bit sad that I wasn't.

Lady with a Spear is a book filled with facts and adventure, told by the shark lady herself, Eugeine Clark. It's all about her life from early on to 1953. She travles from island to island in the South Pacific and Red Sea, collecting fish and watching sharks for research. Her wild, experinces will amaze you and open your heart and mind to another world as her experinces are explained to you. The book can be a bit technical at some times though but keep on reading! You'll fall in love with the sea and its creatures! Her second book, The LADY AND THE SHARKS is just as good, maybe even better! Eugenie is one amzing person and I suggest deeply that you read this book and feel what she herself feeled. She's just a great woman with a great personality and a dedication to save the creatures of the sea!

Ann McGovern came to my school and I chose this book because I like sharks. I am 8 years old and I like sharks. She tells very good stories.This book makes me want to learn more about sharks. She also signed my book.

Who love fishes? I thought. Eugenie Clark love fishes and sharks. She study about diffrent kind of fishes sharks.Also Egenie Clark seen lot of diffrent kind of fishes and sharks.Also Eugenie Clark would cut open a fishes body or sharks study also it. I love the this book and didn't want to put it down.When I finish the story I feel good for what Eugenie Clark did in the story.
I recommed this biography to everybody who love read book about fishes sharks.

This book is very intruging and exciting. It is all about Eugenie Clark's 12 years as director of the cape Haze Marine Laboratory now known as Mote Marine Laboratory. She encounters sharks and captures them for research. She learns much and this book is filled with many facts. This is better than the first book she wrote. Even though this book is old, it is still as fun and interesting as ever. Adventure surronds you as you dive in to read it and to explore Eugeine's world!

This book is fun and educational at the same time. It shows the lives of different women ocean explorers. I loved this book especially, because I want to be just like those women. The ocean is probably my favorite thing in the whole world. I advise all to read this amazing book!

This book depicts the adventures of a man who, through circumstances of his life, becomes involved in the study of sharks and helps perform research about them. Of equal or greater interest are the chapters concerning his cave diving exploits and discovery of ancient human remains and artifacts in Florida mineral springs. A great read

The Man Who Rode Sharks was originally published in 1978 and is now republished by the Authors Guild Backinprint Editions through iUniverse.com, Inc. This book by Colonel William R. Royal (written with Robert F. Burgess) is about Royal's adventures and subsequent new discoveries in shark behavior and underwater archaeology. Actually, two stories in one, the first half of the book details Royal's work with sharks from the 1930s through the 1960s. He became fascinated with sharks from his first encounter with them in 1931 when he leaped into the water to catch a shark to feed his family during the Depression Years. During his travels in the military service he took up scuba diving and had more exciting encounters with them in the Pacific and Mediterranean Sea. After the war Royal was hired to capture sharks for a scientific laboratory. He became known as "the man who rode sharks" because that is what he did to capture them undamaged and alive. Usually he grabbed a nurse shark by the tail and let it drag him around until it tired (always making sure he stayed away from the head, of course). This enabled his catch to be loaded aboard a boat alive, a requirement requested by scientists doing research on squalene, a shark liver extract being investigated then as a possible cure for human cancer. The second half of the book is about Royal's most important contribution to science. When he moved to Florida in 1958, he became interested in Warm Mineral Springs and Little Salt Springs in the central part of the state. Up to this point no one had ventured very deep into these springs. Shortly after scuba gear became available in this country, Royal donned this equipment and started exploring these over 200-feet-deep springs. What he found there proved too unbelievable for the scientists of the day. Deep in Warm Mineral Spring beside prehistoric animal bones buried in mud on a forty-foot deep ledge, Royal found a human skull that carbon-dated to over 10,000 years old! And inside it was identifiable human brain material! Stalactites from the ceiling in the underwater spring indicated that this was once a dry cave, believed to date back to the last Ice Age. Since Early man was not thought to have been in Florida then, scientists of the day questioned the authenticity of these finds, especially since they had been made by an "amateur." Royal spent much of his life trying to persuade qualified underwater archaeologists to come to the spring and do a proper archaeological investigation of the sites. Eventually they did and toward the end of his life, the scientific community properly recognized the pioneering part Bill Royal played in these discoveries. Written in a narrative style by Robert Burgess, who dived these sites with Royal to photograph and record details of his achievements, he details Royal's incredible narrow escapes from sharks, cave-ins and dangerous depths. His style enables readers to relive the excitement of these adventures of a truly unique underwater pioneer. Anyone who thrives on fast-paced true adventure action will find this book a real hair-raiser!

This book is about many of the life stories of my step-father, Bill Royal, who was an amazing man, a self-taught underwater archeologist, and a walking library of information about diving and sharks. The book is of interest to scientists interested in underwater exploration, and to young people looking for an amazing true-life adventure. Bill (with the help of Mr. Burgess) tells about his early life and difficulties, his endless persuit of knowledge, and his love of diving, whether with sharks and to explore underwater archeological sites. Dr. Clark was a good friend, teacher and a diving partner to Bill. I am so gladd this book has been re-published as it will be of interest to a great many.

This book was a great book that I read. What made the book great was that it was mostly about sharks and I love sharks.

I am an educator at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. I teach about sharks and the marine environment because I think education is the best conservation tactic we have. My lifelong fascination with sharks and the ocean all began with this book. Eugenie Clark was an inspiration. This book did a marvelous job of conveying Dr. Clark's enthusiam and awe for not just sharks but for science. This book changed my life.