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You’ve probably heard of Captain Ahab, The White Whale, “Thar She Blows,” and all that. But Moby Dick was inspired by the events of the whale ship Essex.
Moby Dick =
- Massive amounts of pages-pages filled with whaling minutiae. You’ll be for begging for mercy
- A great adventure tale, but the percentage of adventure to the descriptions of viscous blubber oil is skewed heavily in favor of the oil.
- The darling of psychoanalysts everywhere
- Herman Melville’s love letter to Shakespeare. The Bard’s stylistic quirks and bombastic speeches are on every deck of the Pequod.
In The Heart of The Sea
is way more exciting than MD and cuts right to the chase. After a brief history of Nantucket and early 19th century whaling communities, the crew of the Essex set out to whale their fool heads off. I say “fool” because the descriptions of what it means to whale are terrifying. These guys either had no other options, were out of their minds, or the money was just so good that it was worth rowing up to a whale and jabbing it with a sharp stick.
A quick summary without spoilers that you couldn’t get from the dust jacket: the ship gets rammed by a whale and sinks. The survivors drift in three tiny boats for nearly 100 days. They don’t have enough food or water. It eventually comes to the drawing of straws: the men draw to see who must die and be eaten by the rest of the crew. They accept this with remarkable stoicism in some of the most memorable and moving scenes I’ve ever read.
By now you know whether you want to read this book or not, so I’ll speak briefly about the author, and about prizewinners.
Philbrick is an able researcher and great writer. It is always a nice surprise to read a great book, only learning later just how smart the author is. My point: you never feel intellectually over matched by Philbrick, even though most of us probably are.
Second: whenever a book wins a prize, my first reaction is to steer clear. Selections can be driven by politics, marketing, or whether the voting body had its cup of coffee that morning. This is just my personal opinion and taste speaking, but knowing that a book has won an award rarely sends me racing out to buy it.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2000. They got it right. And if you like this, check out Mayflower by the same author. Very good, but not as exciting.
Josh Hanagarne is claiming the title of World’s Strongest Librarian until someone calls him out. http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/ is a blog dedicated to helping people become stronger, smarter, and to live better…every day. World’s Strongest Librarian focuses on kettlebells, grip training, memory improvement, and book reviews. Please drop by the blog and subscribe to the Stronger, Smarter, Better Newsletter for original content to help you be better every day. Also pick up a free copy of the e-book ‘How To Get Stronger At Work While Your Boss Isn’t Looking. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Herman Melville
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HERMAN MELVILLE – AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 12/27 $95,000.00 |
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HERMAN MELVILLE $35,000.00 |
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HERMAN MELVILLE – SIGNATURE(S) $35,000.00 |
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SUPER Rare Moby Dick 1851 First Edition 1st by Herman Melville!! Price 2 SELL $10,000.00 |
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The Confidence Man: His Masquerade HERMAN MELVILLE 1857 First Edition Boxed VG $5,720.00 |
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KRONE MOBY DICK HERMAN MELVILLE ROLLERBALL PEN $4,200.00 |
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KRONE MOBY DICK HERMAN MELVILLE FOUNTAIN PEN $4,100.00 |
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Moby Dick; Or, the White Whale Herman Melville Hardcov $2,000.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or, The Whale $1,500.00 |
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Herman Melville Moby Dick or The Whale 1892 Rare $1,450.00 |
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Moby Dick or The Whale HERMAN MELVILLE 1930 HC Very Good $1,005.20 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick GREEN LEATHER $1,000.00 |
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Bartleby The Scrivener, Herman Melville, Good Book $993.00 |
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Herman Melville Moby Dick or The Whale 1930 First Illust. Edition Rockwell Kent $950.00 |
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MOBY DICK by Herman Melville. ILLUSTRATED BY ROCKWELL KENT-1930, 1st. Printing $800.00 |
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Herman Melville. Mardi: And a Voyage Thither. 1849 1st $750.00 |
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Mardi and A Voyage Thither HERMAN MELVILLE 1925 HC.DJ Fine BR $550.00 |
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Melville’s Marginalia Volume 1 by Herman Melville & Cowen (1988, Hardcover) $549.00 |
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Moby Dick ; or, The Whale by Herman Melville 1943 Rare $525.00 |
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HERMAN MELVILLE~ONE OF 5 COPIES~SIGNED BY PROKOSCH $495.00 |
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MOBY DICK BY HERMAN MELVILLE TOWN-HO’S STORY, FIRST APPERANCE OF MOBY DICK WHALE $475.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick $450.00 |
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Herman Melville NEW by Watson Branch $449.00 |
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Herman Melville by Branch, Watson G. [Hardcover] $443.93 |
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The Lightning-Rod Man HERMAN MELVILLE 1982 HC Fine 1st $440.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick $400.00 |
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MOBY DICK-HERMAN MELVILLE-1930-ROCKWELL KENT-VERY NICE! $359.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or The Whale DJ $325.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick: The Whale $300.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or The Whale $300.00 |
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John Marr and Other Poems HERMAN MELVILLE 1922 HC Fine 1st $302.50 |
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Rockwell Kent Herman Melville MOBY DICK 1930 $300.00 |
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Herman Melville Moby Dick or The Whale 1923 Rare DJ Illustrated Edition $279.95 |
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Melville Herman MOBY DICK OR THE WHALE Easton Press 1st $275.00 |
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Melville, Herman MOBY DICK Easton Press 1st Edition First Printing $275.00 |
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Melville, Herman BILLY BUDD AND BENITO CERENO Easton Press 1st Edition First $275.00 |
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1930 MOBY DICK Herman Melville illustr by Rockwell Kent 1st First Edition $275.00 |
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Journal of a Visit to London and the Continent HERMAN MELVILLE 1948 1ST HC/DJ BR $275.00 |
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Apple Tree Table and other sketches HERMAN MELVILLE 1922 HC/DJ Fine 111 of 175 $275.00 |
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Journal Up the Sraits HERMAN MELVILLE 1935 HC 1st Fine BR $275.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick $266.00 |
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Herman Melville/Typee/Heritage Press/Sandglass/Slipcase $250.00 |
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Herman Melville/OMOO/Heritage Press/Sandglass/Slipcase $250.00 |
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HERMAN MELVILLE Chattanooga & Gettysburg in HARPER’S $233.75 |
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MOBY DICK OR THE WHALE Herman Melville ILLUSTRATED ROCKWELL KENT HC 1930 1st Ed. $219.00 |
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A Companion to Herman Melville NEW $222.50 |
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MOBY DICK by Herman Melville/1st ed (Winston) $220.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or The Whale $215.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or the Whale $215.00 |
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Melville, Herman MOBY DICK OR THE WHALE $211.11 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or The White Whale $211.00 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or the Whale $207.50 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick or the Whale $205.00 |
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CLASSIC COMICS #5 MOBY DICK (HRN 21) NM BY HERMAN MELVILLE SCARCE IN HI GRADE $199.95 |
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Melville, Herman Moby Dick $200.00 |
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TYPEE A Romance Of The South Seas Herman Melville Heritage Press NY $199.99 |
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TYPEE by Herman Melville, 1848 $199.95 |
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Moby Dick Or, the Whale Herman Melville 0520043545 Illustrated by Barry Moser $195.00 |
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Israel Potter, Herman Melville, Good Book $182.50 |
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Herman Melville Typee A Peep at Polynesian Life LE 1962 $175.00 |
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Captain Ahab and Tashtego sighting the White Whale Photo Mugs Captain Ahab and Tashtego sighting the White Whale (Moby Dick) from the top of the foremast of the whaling ship Pequod. …. |
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Captain Ahab on the deck of the whaling ship Pequod Photo Mugs Captain Ahab, holding his telescope, on the quarter-deck of the whaling ship Pequod. …. |
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Herman Melville/century Photo Mugs Herman Melville American Writer …. |
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Britten – Billy Budd / Tim Albery · David Atherton · Thomas Allen · ENO $29.99 Perhaps no Benjamin Britten opera so forcefully explores the composer’s recurring theme of the destruction of innocence as Billy Budd, adapted from the Herman Melville novella about an angelic midshipman who is fated to his demise when he clashes with the inscrutably evil Claggart. It’s the character of Captain Vere who is the essence of any Billy Budd production (Britten originally wrote it f… |
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Until It Sleeps $0.99 Japanese edition of the first single from their 1996 album ‘Load’ is b/w five non-LP tracks, ‘Until It Sleeps’ (Herman Melville Mix), live versions of ’2 X 4′, ‘Overkill’, ‘Kill/ Ride Medley’ (featuring ‘Ride The Lightning’, ‘No Remorse’, ‘Hit The Lights’… |
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Warren M. Swenson: Battle Pieces $13.05 … |
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Moby Dick $6.45 Herman Melville’s classic tale of obsession and revenge is brought to the screen in electrifying fashion. Gregory Peck delivers a stellar performance as Captain Ahab, commander of a whaling boat who risks his ship and crew in his relentless pursuit of the great white whale that took his leg. Richard Basehart, Leo Genn and Orson Welles also star. John Huston directs from a screenplay he co-wrote wi… |
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Billy Budd $18.50 Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 03/06/2007 Run time: 123 minutes… |
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Famous Authors Series, The – Herman Melville (DVD) $17.81 Best known for “Moby Dick: or, The Whale” and “Billy Budd Sailor,” scrivener Herman Melville led a life almost as adventurous as his works. This record of his life resembles a travelogue. |
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Herman Melville (Hardcover) $87.61 Description not available. |
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Frederick Douglass & Herman Melville (Paperback) $24.75 Description not available. |
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The Cambridge Introduction to Herman Melville (Hardcover) $80.39 Despite its indifferent reception when it was first published in 1851, Moby Dick is now a central work in the American literary canon. This introduction offers readings of Melville`s masterpiece, but it also sets out the key themes, contexts, and criti… |
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Short Stories by Herman Melville (Paperback) $10.26 Description not available. |
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Critical Companion to Herman Melville (Hardcover) $71.94 Presents a guide to the life and literary accomplishments of the American author, including analyses of the contents and characters of each of his works. |
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Great Short Works of Herman Melville $11.1 Melville’s short fiction, which includes BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER, BENITO CERENO, and BILLY BUDD is considered among his greatest |
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An Artist in the Rigging (Paperback) $22.72 An Artist in the Rigging is a study of Herman Melville`s early novels–Typee, Omoo, Mardi, Redburn, and White-Jacket. The author considers these fictions from the standpoint of thematic relationship rather… |
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American Risorgimento (Hardcover) $61.98 Although Herman Melville is typically considered one of America’s earliest cosmopolitan writers, scholarship has focused primarily on his involvement with the South Seas, England, and the Holy Land. In American Risorgimento: Her… |
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The Exceptionalist State and the State of Exception (Hardcover) $62.5 Critics predominantly view Herman Melville`s Billy Budd, Sailor as a “testament of acceptance,” the work of a man who had become politically conservative in his last years. William V. Spanos disagrees, arguing that the novella was not only a politic… |
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Bartleby (DVD) $12.87 Former musician Jonathan Parker makes his feature film directorial debut with a modern retelling of the Herman Melville classic, |
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Writing for the Street, Writing in the Garret (Hardcover) $43.71 Although Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson differed dramatically in terms of their lives and writing careers, they shared not only a distaste for writing “for the street” (mass readership) but a preference for the intimate writer&… |
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The Entanglements of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Hardcover) $71.33 Nathaniel Hawthorne, celebrated in his own day for sketches that now seem sentimental, came only gradually to be fully appreciated for what his friend Herman Melville diagnosed as the “power of blackness” in his fiction – the complex moral grappling wi… |
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Stove by a Whale (Paperback) $22.72 The first documented sinking of a ship by a whale and a harrowing account by the ship`s first mate of the survivors` three months adrift in small boats. A thrilling narrative that inspired Herman Melville`s masterpiece Moby Dick. |
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American Gothic Tales (Paperback) $13.52 More than 40 stories in the best Gothic tradition, beginning with 19th-century authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, and ending with the present guard including Peter Straub, Anne Rice, and Stephen King. |
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Bunion Derby (Paperback) $13.43 With sharply contending perspectives, Colin Browne unearths a fragmentary history of the twentieth century?what is unspoken, denied, transformed, or swept under the rug. Herman Melville, Igor Stravinsky, Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, Duke Elling… |
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Omoo (Paperback) $11.88 Melville`s continuing adventures in the South Seas?now for the first time in Penguin Classics Following the commercial and critical success of Typee, Herman Melville continued his series of South Sea adventure-romances with Omoo |
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Poets Of The Civil War $18.93 An authoritative anthology of Civil War poetry and songs includes pieces by such writers as Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and John Greenleaf Whittier, in a collection that reflects on such topics as the rise and fall of the Confederacy, the fight a |
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Great American Short Stories $3.46 Featuring 19 of the finest works in the American short-story tradition, this compilation includes: “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Bartleby” by Herman Melville, “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” by F. Scott Fitzg… |
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Moby Dick (Blu-ray Disc) $14.84 Academy Award-winner William Hurt top-lines this retelling of Herman Melville`s timeless tale of obsession and madness on the high seas. His crew taken from him by massive white whale that dwells deep in the sea, vengeful Captain Ahab (Hurt) steers his… |
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Against the Gallows (Paperback) $31.73  In Against the Gallows, Paul Christian Jones explores the intriguing cooperation of America’s writers—including major figures such as Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, E. D. E. N. Southworth, and Herman Melville—w… |
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Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick – Vol. 3: The Moad Trail (DVD) $23.53 Director Osamu Dezaki fashions an imaginative retelling of Herman Melville`s literary masterpiece with his sci-fi anime series H |
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