What You Should Know About Sharks: Shark Language, social behavior, human inter- actions, and life saving information

by Ocean Ramsey

Never before published information on shark language and what to do to avoid, deter, or interact with sharks. A practical guide for any ocean goer should you encounter a shark or wish to increase or decrease your chances of such and experience. There is so much more to sharks than meets the eye and we are only beginning to understand them. I hope this book will help others to understand them on a deeper level and I know that the information provided in the series I’ve written can help save human lives. I hope with a deeper understanding people might also begin to appreciate, care, and my deepest hope is that they might even be inspired enough to join me in efforts to help save the lives of sharks who are currently being slaughtered by the millions.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Science

244 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2019

Reviews

[Yana]

There is room for improvement (lay-out, typo’s, spacing, structuring of text/thoughts), but I fully support the attempt to reach as much people as possible and educate them about why we need to put effort in conservation (and stop demonising sharks).

[Sarah Guganovic]

With ALL the knowledge Ramsey has I wish she had taken a bit more time to present the information more credibly. Still, a useful book for understanding sharkies.

[Sarah Maciel]

SUPER informative book and everyone who loves the ocean should read this. I am biased because I did swim with oneocean in Hawaii and fell in love with sharks, but I bought this and it fueled my passion even more for the conservation of marine life. There are a lot of spelling mistakes and grammar issues but it did not take away from the knowledge you get from this book!

[Maria]

I picked up this book after I received a Bull Shark dive as a gift. I learned a lot from this book, and even more from actually diving with sharks.

Jaws and mainstream media will have us believe that sharks are bloodthirsty monsters and this is far from true. We are not part of a shark's diet and the less than 12 people that die each year by shark dives are the exception, not the rule. On the other hand the more than ONE HUNDRED MILLION sharks we kill every year is a fact that will ultimately destroy our oceans and life as we know it.

Oceans cannot survive without sharks. And we cannot survive without the oceans. You do the math and pick your side.

[Amanda]

I really wanted to give this book 5 stars just because the message is so important, and I do commend Ocean for writing this book to convey that message, however; between the double spacing that just feels like a huge rip off, the lack of incorporating other research with her own observations, the random photographs that have no descriptions, and the poor structure/writing of the book, I would struggle to even give it a 3. Maybe 2.5 stars would be appropriate if I could?

It felt like I was reading an incredibly long and expensive opinion piece with very little new information offered. Very disappointing as it could have been absolutely brilliant.

[Clarines]

Es una lectura fascinante para los amantes de la naturaleza y los tiburones (o como yo, del mundo animal en general). Ocean explica las nociones básicas para entender cómo se comunican, interactúan y se comportan los tiburones, a la misma vez que hace un recorrido por las diferentes especies y las características de cada uno. Con un lenguaje sencillo y muy ilustrativo, nos acerca un poco más al mundo tan desconocido de este gran depredador del océano, que es tan maltratado y malentendido por los humanos. Además, hace un llamado para proteger a estos seres tan importantes en nuestro ecosistema y anima a los lectores a informarse más y a apreciar a los tiburones como lo que son: maravillosos depredadores tremendamente evolucionados y no como monstruos comedores de personas como Hollywood los ha representado.

“Los tiburones son como los glóbulos blancos en el sistema inmune del océano. Se encargan de recoger a los animales muertos o heridos asegurándose que el océano esté limpio y que las enfermedades no se propaguen” Sin ellos, el ecosistema moriría. Les debemos mucho.

[Roxanne Garcia]

Loved this book. Very informative on everything you need to know up to date on shark behaviour.

[Celeste Valladares]

The vast knowledge Ocean shares based on years of experience with sharks is super helpful, especially considering the current critical issue of prioritizing shark specific conservation efforts. However, the information is at times difficult to comprehend due to extremely convoluted sentence structure and grammatical errors. (It took me so long to get through it for this reason) I do wish there had been more editing done prior to publishing. This book’s readership would highly benefit from a new edition, for the sake of clarity.

[Courtney Seale]

Definitely room for improvement in this book as she’s an expert in the field, I felt I already knew most the information she laid out. Also, she charges an hefty amount for how meh the information was. Easy typos that should not have been done and stuff like that. It’s a cool book to read, although I felt as if most of the information you could find in easier/better ways.

[Veronica]

It definitely needs to be edited again, but it’s a wonderful book about an under appreciated species.

[sammi_reads]

I found the author to be extremely passionate about sharks and the many misperceptions people have of them. I stopped watching Shark Week because some shows on there only seemed to hype up people's fear of sharks with very little fact or focus on what the people did wrong (even when this involved people straight up provoking the shark on purpose!). I love books that have the correct information getting out there and hope many people read this and change their viewpoints. Unfortunately, I have a feeling with the people who want to and choose to be read this it's more like preaching to the choir. But hopefully everyone can learn a few new things.
I loved the categories of ages and caution levels among various sharks. Reading about their behavior patterns from someone who did a lot of first-hand observation was also fantastic. I wish there were even more stories of her encounters.

The downsides: the spacing, paragraphs and general editing were not fantastic. The book also got repetitive at various points. The author also mentioned using your fin to block if necessary, but I kept thinking, "Do I take the fin off first or leave it on?" I wish certain things like that were more specific, even if it might seem like a dumb question.

I was surprised how often she mentioned diving with chum, although she did site how to be cautious about this. I had always been taught never to do this because it affects the way sharks both feed (making them more reliant on humans) and approach divers in certain areas (making them more aggressive when not fed). However, with the dwindling ocean populations I'm tempted to just let people feed the poor starving sharks! I felt so terrible reading about the changes the author noticed of how many starving sharks there really are compared to even a decade ago.

All in all, I loved the passion and message behind this book and would recommend it as an interesting read

[Rachel]

The content and intent of this book is a solid 5 stars. Ocean Ramsey is a champion of sharks and has incredible motivations in their protection by educating us all on exactly how they behave and dismantling their previous bad rap. I truly adore Ocean and JuanSharks and just love all the work they do on social channels as well to give us a glimpse of sharks as apex predators / not monsters - absolutely worthy of protection. This book really speaks to how sharks are not only majestic and extraordinary in their own right but of their absolute importance in being part of the oceans. How they are like the white blood cells of the ocean to keep it healthy.
I can’t reiterate enough how essential both this book and its message are to educating people.
My only criticism of the book is that it needed a proofreader / editor before it went to print and I don’t understand how this part of the publishing process was skipped entirely. I think the messages in this book would be taken even more seriously if the book didn’t have the glaring grammatical, structural errors and oftentimes clunky word structure. At one point “agnostic” was used instead of “agonostic” to explain shark behavior. At another point, six lessons in shark interaction were delineated but a lesson 2 skipped entirely so I wonder if pages got left out. Many run-on sentences also in most of it so I had to go back and reread a lot. I look forward to a second edition that has been professionally edited.

[Elizabeth Waight]

Mirroring many of the other reviews on here. Content was overall great and Ocean’s dedication to sharks is truly inspiring. I could get over the typos and poor grammar but when comprehension is affected I feel this could lead to accidents. For example, some of the guidance on what to do if you meet a shark in adverse scenarios just didn’t make sense. How do you ram a shark with your surfboard while being told to stay on it. How do you swim at a shark, then over it and hold on to the dorsal fin in the position the photograph seems to suggest (facing the opposite direction). A robust edit, and a beta read by someone not used to diving with sharks, would eliminate these issue and make this a fabulous book. There could be a clear set of photos explaining instructions with relevant labels. I’m also quite surprised by the price of this book for the print quality. The photographs could by much bigger and with higher quality would be wonderful. Still giving 4 stars as I believe in what Ocean and Juan are doing and I learned a lot. I hope the suggestions will be seen in the constructive way they are meant 😊

[Karina Jacobus]

Aaaaah ....the review for Ocean Ramsey's book... a difficult one.

First time I bought a book of an 'influencer', impressed by all her pictures on Instagram.
The first impression when it arrived was not great. The quality of the photographs is limited and to fill the pages the font size and spacing was enormous.

But hey,
I was a fan.

I did actually find the content interesting and did learn enough. After reading other sources I did however unfollow Ocean Ramsey because there are many ethical questions on her approach and the core activities of her 'foundation'. Let's hope she does however have an impact on the general negative perception of sharks and get's nobody hurt in the process.

[Irma Ali]

Beautiful book by one of my idols. Giving 4 stars because there is room for improvement like typos and some sourced facts. However it is extremely educational and a very easy read. I’m a photographer so I obviously loved the photos by Juan through the book. I learned a lot about safety and dumping that hasn’t been mentioned in other shark books / documentaries I’ve read / seen so far. Very informative on conservation and the environment which I loved. 10/10 would recommend to anyone. I look forward to her future books. I hope she makes something with more in-depth shark behavior on specific sharks with detailed labeled photos of each.

[Cari Ritzenthaler]

Definitely give it a shot if you’re interested in sharks, want to swim with sharks, enjoy spending anytime at all in the ocean, or want some knowledge to overcome your fears. Ocean Ramsey uses fantastic metaphors to help you connect with sharks and understand their perspective as endangered apex predators while giving multiple anecdotes about her time in the ocean among many different species. It’s easy to feel Ramsey’s love for the ocean and shark between the lines written on every page.

[Sarah Franke]

If you can get past the spelling mistakes, layout made on Microsoft word and stories about herself repeated several times - you may learn one or two things about shark behaviour and deterring. The book could honestly be halved in pages and it would be a lot better, plus an editor (or even just Microsoft word spell check).
I appreciate the intent behind this book, but also acknowledge the problems it may present in letting just anyone think they can redirect a white shark…

[Karen Gonzalez-Videla]

I have been following Ocean Ramsey for some time and have learned so much from her work. This book helped me learn so much more about sharks. Every time I think there is nothing left for me to learn about them, I am once again proved wrong. Sharks are such wonderful creatures and we need to do whatever we can to protect them.

[Jan-Peter Geringer]

I was really looking forward to read this book, due to the positive impact Ocean has on the perception of sharks and their preseevation. Got utterly dissapointed by the writing style, pseudo scientific claims, cheap format and random way of piecing topics up together.

[Bizzy]

Lots of interesting and useful information. Definitely needs a major re-edit (typos, run-on sentences, repetitive words/phrasing, etc) but the general content is good. Save the sharks!!! 🦈🦈🦈

[Olivia]

Interesting and useful information as someone who scuba dives with sharks. However, the book was chock full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors which was annoying as I read it.

[Jordan C. Honea]

This has been my work book, reading whenever I get the chance. It’s been interesting reading how sharks will display different behaviors through their body language.

[Dylan]

Great book excellent stories and knowledge, however I noticed some grammar/spelling errors.

[Anna Lulu]

Despite the mixed public opinions about the author it still contains lots of intresting and useful information

[Kloe]

2.5!

[Savannah Hatfield]

Love Ocean. Love Juan. Love sharks. Love information. Perfect book.