Sharks are weird. They survived the dinosaur extinction, predate trees (?!), and some can dive four THOUSAND feet below the ocean’s surface, to say nothing of a sixth sense that allows them to sense electric fields. Steven Spielberg and the Discovery Channel have trained us to fear them, although humans kill sharks a lot more often than sharks kill humans. Ocean conservationist and documentarian William McKeever is something of an apologist for the much-maligned species, and his new book’s called Emperors of the Deep: Sharks—The Ocean’s Most Mysterious, Most Misunderstood, and Most Important Guardians. In it, he argues they they are evolutionary marvels necessary for a balanced ecosystem.
The reading will include a private screening of McKeever’s documentary Emperors of the Deep.