A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “Jaws Maui”

Price: $39.95 (Available at surf and sailboard shops)

There are no great white sharks in Maui, but there is Jaws--the most notorious big-wave surfing break in the world.

And now there is a coffee table book called “Jaws Maui,” which puts you directly in the impact zone of a surf spot challenged first about five years ago by sailboarders and more recently by a dozen or so daredevil surfers who have pioneered the sport of “power surfing.” Power surfers are towed behind a jet-ski into massive oceanic swells that move too fast to catch by paddling conventional surfboards.

Charlie and Leslie Lyon did a terrific job, using the brilliant color photography of Patrick McFeeley to capture the essence of both Jaws and the lush region in a remote section of Maui off the highway to Hana.

McFeeley for years has staked out Jaws from the cliffs above the break and from helicopters, which at times put him so close to the waves that he could feel the spray being blown off their tops by the trade winds filtering steadily through a valley called Peahi.

At times, while looking through his lens, he said it felt as though the helicopter were being swallowed by Jaws, which is not hard to believe because a helicopter could easily fit inside a grinding Jaws tube.

Through his work, McFeeley has gotten to know many in the close-knit group of extreme surfers--Laird Hamilton, Rush Randle and Dave Kalama, to name a few--who through the development of specialized equipment have made a fine art of riding waves that reach heights of more than 50 feet.

On most of the 227 pages of “Jaws Maui,” the pictures tell the story adequately enough, illustrating the surfers and wave-runner pilots in action. But the Lyons and McFeeley added a nice touch by not only identifying the surfers on the waves, but letting them describe what it’s like to streak down the faces of the biggest ridable waves on the planet.

Says legendary Oahu lifeguard and big-wave surfer Brian Keaulana: “We’re dealing with a beast here. People see the beauty and how we make it look easy, but Jaws is like a final exam.”