-
Why Read Moby-Dick?
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $16.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Moby Dick
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: William Hootkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.
-
-
Excellent, EXCELLENT reading!
- By Jessica on 02-18-09
By: Herman Melville
-
Moby-Dick as Philosophy
- Plato - Melville - Nietzsche
- By: Mark Anderson
- Narrated by: Randal Schaffer
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moby-Dick as Philosophy is at base a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The commentary form of the audiobook subserves a higher end, the presentation of an ideal of the type "philosopher". Superimposing portraits of Plato, Melville, and Nietzsche - the thinkers themselves, their ideas, and their lives - it generates a composite image from the overlaying and interblending of figures. At a higher level still, the audiobook is a meditation on the nature of philosophy and its relation to wisdom and the relation of creative artistry to both.
-
-
Terrible Narration
- By Linda on 12-28-18
By: Mark Anderson
-
In the Heart of the Sea
- The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819 the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, and disease and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.
-
-
Audio must have been fixed
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-18
-
Sea of Glory
- America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his best-selling In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen - the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.
-
-
A good solid voyage of discovery
- By Ken Sundermeyer on 06-18-05
-
Away Off Shore
- Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his first book of history, Away Off Shore, New York Times best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals the people and the stories behind what was once the whaling capital of the world. Beyond its charm, quaint local traditions, and whaling yarns, Philbrick explores the origins of Nantucket in this comprehensive history. From the English settlers who thought they were purchasing a "Native American ghost town" but actually found a fully realized society, the story of Nantucket is a truly unique chapter of American history.
-
-
There once were some (wo)men in Nantucket...
- By Darwin8u on 02-03-19
-
Bunker Hill
- A City, a Siege, a Revolution
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution. In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
-
-
Liberté, piété, prostituées!
- By Darwin8u on 10-13-18
-
Moby Dick
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: William Hootkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.
-
-
Excellent, EXCELLENT reading!
- By Jessica on 02-18-09
By: Herman Melville
-
Moby-Dick as Philosophy
- Plato - Melville - Nietzsche
- By: Mark Anderson
- Narrated by: Randal Schaffer
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moby-Dick as Philosophy is at base a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. The commentary form of the audiobook subserves a higher end, the presentation of an ideal of the type "philosopher". Superimposing portraits of Plato, Melville, and Nietzsche - the thinkers themselves, their ideas, and their lives - it generates a composite image from the overlaying and interblending of figures. At a higher level still, the audiobook is a meditation on the nature of philosophy and its relation to wisdom and the relation of creative artistry to both.
-
-
Terrible Narration
- By Linda on 12-28-18
By: Mark Anderson
-
In the Heart of the Sea
- The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819 the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, and disease and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.
-
-
Audio must have been fixed
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-18
-
Sea of Glory
- America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his best-selling In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen - the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.
-
-
A good solid voyage of discovery
- By Ken Sundermeyer on 06-18-05
-
Away Off Shore
- Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his first book of history, Away Off Shore, New York Times best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals the people and the stories behind what was once the whaling capital of the world. Beyond its charm, quaint local traditions, and whaling yarns, Philbrick explores the origins of Nantucket in this comprehensive history. From the English settlers who thought they were purchasing a "Native American ghost town" but actually found a fully realized society, the story of Nantucket is a truly unique chapter of American history.
-
-
There once were some (wo)men in Nantucket...
- By Darwin8u on 02-03-19
-
Bunker Hill
- A City, a Siege, a Revolution
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution. In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
-
-
Liberté, piété, prostituées!
- By Darwin8u on 10-13-18
-
Mayflower
- A Story of Courage, Community, and War
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a 55-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.
-
-
Removing the Blinders
- By Karen on 07-21-06
-
Ahab's Rolling Sea
- A Natural History of "Moby-Dick"
- By: Richard J. King
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab's Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville's novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction.
By: Richard J. King
-
The Piazza Tales (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: David deVries
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With disparate settings such as a Massachusetts farmhouse and the strange volcanic clime of the Enchanted Isles, this six-story anthology features some of Herman Melville’s most exceptional works. Included here is “Bartleby,” the dark tale of a Wall Street clerk who possesses a confounding and disarmingly passive insubordination; and “Benito Cereno,” in which the captain of a whaler boards a tattered Spanish slave ship in South America only to be drawn into an intricately plotted mutiny.
-
-
A Melville sampler
- By Tad Davis on 08-14-19
By: Herman Melville
-
Classics of Russian Literature
- By: The Great Courses, Irwin Weil
- Narrated by: Irwin Weil
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russian literature famously probes the depths of the human soul, and in this series of 36 insightful lectures prepared by a frequently honored teacher legendary among educators in both the United States and Russia-you probe just as deeply into the extraordinary legacy that is Russian Literature itself.Professor Weil introduces you to masterpieces such as Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Gogol's Dead Souls, Chekhov's The Seagull, Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, and many other great novels, stories, plays, and poems.
-
-
Jump in The Troika for A Ride with Dr. Weil!
- By Rich on 07-15-16
By: The Great Courses, and others
-
Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paradise Lost, along with its companion piece, Paradise Regained, remain the most successful attempts at Greco-Roman style epic poetry in the English language. Remarkably enough, they were written near the end of John Milton's amazing life, a bold testimonial to his mental powers in old age. And, since he had gone completely blind in 1652, 15 years prior to Paradise Lost, he dictated it and all his other works to his daughter.
-
-
Great Bio Followed by Milton's Masterpiece
- By Thomas Phelan on 01-10-11
By: John Milton
-
How to Read and Understand Shakespeare
- By: Marc C. Conner, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Marc C. Conner
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shakespeare's works are among the greatest of humanity's cultural expressions and, as such, demand to be experienced and understood. But, simply put, Shakespeare is difficult. His language and culture - those of Elizabethan England - are greatly different from our own, and his poetry, thick with metaphorical imagery and double meanings, can be hard to penetrate.
-
-
To Listen or Not to Listen…
- By Ark1836 on 10-13-15
By: Marc C. Conner, and others
-
The Modern Scholar: Moby Dick
- America's Epic
- By: Professor Timothy B. Shutt
- Narrated by: Professor Timothy B. Shutt
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American writers have long sought to compose "the great American novel", or "America's epic", Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby have been advanced as plausible contenders for the title, but no work can mount a more substantial claim than Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or The Whale.
-
-
Some parts are good
- By Sophie on 03-18-15
-
Of Wolves and Men
- By: Barry Lopez
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humankind's relationship with the wolf is the sum of a spectrum of responses ranging from fear to admiration and affection. Lopez's classic, careful study has won praise from a wide range of reviewers and improved the way books on wild animals are written. Of Wolves and Men explores the uneasy interaction between wolves and civilization over the centuries, and the wolf's prominence in our thoughts about wild creatures.
-
-
Very good book!
- By Anonymous User on 04-01-22
By: Barry Lopez
-
The Fifties
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the 10 years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower, Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon; but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; and more.
-
-
one of the very best
- By Portsman on 09-25-18
By: David Halberstam
-
Fall of Giants
- Book One of the Century Trilogy
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 30 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.
-
-
Loved it and learned alot.
- By Louis on 10-19-10
By: Ken Follett
-
In the Wake of Madness
- The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon
- By: Joan Druett
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Commanded by Captain Howes Norris, the Sharon headed for the whaling grounds of the northwestern Pacific. At Pohnpei Island, 12 men from the Sharon deserted the ship, leaving her critically shorthanded. After steering for New Zealand to recruit more crew, the men on lookout raised a school of sperm whales. Two boats gave chase, each with a crew of six. Five men were left on board the Sharon: Norris, three pacific Islanders, and a Portuguese boy named Manuel.
-
-
Love this author.
- By David H. on 07-15-17
By: Joan Druett
-
North and South
- North and South Trilogy, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 30 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two strangers, young men from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, meet on the way to West Point.... Thus begins this brilliant novel of antebellum America, spanning three generations and chronicling the lives and loves of two great family dynasties. The Hazards and the Mains are brought together in bonds of friendship and affection that neither jealousy nor violence can shatter - until a storm of events sunders the nation and brings the cataclysm of war!
-
-
Captivating novel of the Civil War
- By 9S on 01-12-13
By: John Jakes
Publisher's Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of seagoing epics now celebrates an American classic. Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an aura of difficulty that too often keeps readers at bay. Fortunately, one unabashed fan wants passionately to give Melville's masterpiece the broad contemporary audience it deserves.
In his National Book Award- winning best seller, In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick captivatingly unpacked the story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex, the real-life incident that inspired Melville to write Moby- Dick. Now, he sets his sights on the fiction itself, offering a cabin master's tour of a spellbinding novel rich with adventure and history.
Philbrick skillfully navigates Melville's world and illuminates the book's humor and unforgettable characters-finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. A perfect match between author and subject, Why Read Moby-Dick? gives us a renewed appreciation of both Melville and the proud seaman's town of Nantucket that Philbrick himself calls home. Like Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, this remarkable little book will start conversations, inspire arguments, and, best of all, bring a new wave of readers to a classic tale waiting to be discovered anew.
Critic Reviews
"Gracefully written [with an] infectious enthusiasm…” (New York Times Book Review)
“In this cogent and passionate polemic for Melville’s masterpiece, Philbrick... combines a critical eye and a reader’s adoration to make a case for Moby-Dick... Less lit-crit and more readers’ guide, this tome will remind fans why they loved the book in the first place, and whet the appetites of trepid potential readers.” (Publishers Weekly)
"A slim celebration of the elements of a literary masterpiece…Philbrick is an enthusiastic salesman for a sometimes daunting novel.” (Kirkus)
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Why Read Moby-Dick?
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 10-20-12
A beautiful love letter to an amazing novel
A nice series of loose essays exploring Moby-Dick (don't forget the fierce harpooned-like hyphen), Melville's life and Melville's relationship with the shy Hawthorne. It is a good but way-too-way short look at the annihilation of writing perhaps the greatest of American novels. WRM-D? is a beautiful love letter to an amazing novel and one of America greatest wandering, stoic poets; born 50 years too soon to recognize the joy or satisfaction of seeing his own pages being cut in 20th Century and the Modern world.
18 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julie W. Capell
- 06-28-13
Skip this; read “In the Heart of the Sea” instead
What disappointed you about Why Read Moby-Dick??
I had not read Moby-Dick before I picked this up, but I had read “In the Heart of the Sea,” also by Philbrick. I would highly recommend “In the Heart of the Sea” as an excellent intro to Moby-Dick, much better than this slight piece. All the most interesting things in this book are also in “In the Heart of the Sea” so I would say you can skip this one.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tad Davis
- 11-09-11
Good introduction to the book
If you're planning to read (or listen to) "Moby Dick," you might want to give this short audiobook a try first. It's a useful audio introduction; it will clue you in to at least some of what Melville was trying to do and what his life circumstances were when he undertook to write the book. (I never knew, for example, that his first draft was a more conventional whaling yarn, and that it was only after meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne that he began to re-envision the story as a much darker, more cosmic tale.)
Philbrick does a good job describing his own thoughts and the basic facts of the case. He's much less effective as a narrator when he's reading passages from the novel, which happens quite a bit: if you've experienced Anthony Heald, Frank Muller, or one of the other outstanding narrators of the book on Audible, it will be hard at times to hear Philbrick going through the same material. It's not that he's really BAD, it's just that his straight-ahead delivery is very much at odds with the flights of language so common in Melville.
Still, as I said, it's a useful introduction; it has a lot to say about Melville, whaling, mid-nineteenth-century America, the Bible, Shakespeare, and literature in general. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in "Moby Dick."
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathleen Valentine
- 11-02-11
A wonderful book about a wonderful book
Whether or not you have read Moby Dick, this brief but thorough examination is filled with facts, opinions, and background material that can provide a compelling introduction to those who have not read it or a satisfying supplement to those who have. I've read Moby Dick, I've listened to the audio book, I've seen the movies, and I've argued with people who find it tedious and over-wrought. I, personally, love Moby Dick. This book, like its inspiration, is one I'll read again just to absorb the wide variety of information it contain. I especially loved the authors background material on the relationship between Melville and his hero, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Like the author I am a former Pennsylvanian, now a New Englander and I was struck, also, by his discussion of the steel mills in his native Pittsburgh (I remember them well) and the way in which Melville foreshadowed the changing face of American industry. Just a wonderful work!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brian
- 01-11-17
In a word: FABULOUS
Though not nearly as articulate as the author. So far have "Audibilized" 3 Philbricks and plan on them all.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan
- 08-30-16
This should be placed in every copy of Moby-Dick, or the Whale as a preface to inspire readers to read on!
Nathaniel Philbrick's masterpiece "Heart of the Sea" was filled with Melville's quotes and through that book the reader understood the author's love of Moby-Dick. This book brings it all home and more. Philbrick is the perfect person to help current & future readers better understand this "American Bible" of literature and inspire (yea, give permission) to read on!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- E. Vanamee
- 05-21-15
Short book about a long one
I'm usually clamoring for brevity, and Philbrick delivers in spades. I'm still wondering what's missing. It's a brilliant book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Albert
- 12-26-11
Excellent background info
What did you love best about Why Read Moby-Dick??
In writing Moby Dick, Melville reflected his times, the 1950's, as tensions were growing in the country that soon lead to the Civil War. The story, and his characters, embody basic truths about the human condition, and about society, that have meaning for us today, over 150 years later.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
The author gives us a lot of information about Melville's personal life, and about the sacrifices he (and his family) made to complete the book. Of course, he discuses the book, too, but I would have liked additional commentary about the story, itself, the symbolism and the characters.
Any additional comments?
I was fascinated to learn about Melville's close friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and how Hawthorne's gentle influence caused Melville to completely rewrite (and improve) Moby Dick. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to deepen their understanding of this great novel.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pradheepa
- 12-02-11
Sincere and persuasive
Nathaniel Philbrick admits that Moby Dick is not an easy read and his sincerity is one reason why his passion and enthusiasm for Moby Dick could be contagious. He provides a solid argument for why one should still attempt to read / listen to Moby Dick, a little at a time. I was thinking of buying a book titled 'Moby Duck' about little yellow plastic ducks, ocean pollution and the environment. It is on my wish list. I wondered whether reading Moby Dick was a prerequisite for enjoying 'Moby Duck' and why I would be interested in reading about a man obsessed with killing a whale. So, I listened to Nathaniel Philbrick's 'Why read Moby Dick?'. It was quite persuasive. I think I will dip into Moby Dick sometime. It certainly made me want to listen to Nathaniel Philbrick's books about seafarers and storms.
A good listen overall.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Charles
- 12-12-11
Academic and yet worthwhile
What disappointed you about Why Read Moby-Dick??
Although it gave interesting biographical and background information about Melville and his whale story it was not an exciting or wholly put together narrative.
Would you recommend Why Read Moby-Dick? to your friends? Why or why not?
Unless a determined fan or wholly ignorant of this great book most people could easily pass on listening to it and not miss much.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Nathaniel Philbrick?
Not sure but a professional may could have done more with the material.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
I was disappointed somewhat because given the title I was sure when I finished that I would want to rush out and read Moby Dick again soon. It didn't happen.
2 people found this helpful
Related to this topic
-
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- By: Jules Verne, Lisa Church - editor
- Narrated by: Rebecca K. Reynolds
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jules Verne’s classic science fiction fantasy carries its hero - Professor Aronnax of the Museum of Paris - on a thrilling and dangerous journey far below the waves to see what creatures live in the ocean’s depths. In the process, Verne imagined a vessel that had not yet been invented: the submarine.
-
-
Didn't enjoy the performance.
- By Nick A. Wyse on 12-10-19
By: Jules Verne, and others
-
On Leopard Rock
- A Life of Adventures
- By: Wilbur Smith
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wilbur Smith has lived an incredible life of adventure, and now he shares the extraordinary true stories that have inspired his fiction. From being attacked by lions to close encounters with deadly reef sharks, from getting lost in the African bush without water to crawling the precarious tunnels of gold mines, from marlin fishing with Lee Marvin to near death from crash-landing a Cessna airplane, from brutal school days to redemption through writing and falling in love, Wilbur Smith tells us the intimate stories of his life that have been the raw material for his fiction.
-
-
This Gives You a Look Into Wilbur Smiths Life
- By Michele Haines on 12-12-19
By: Wilbur Smith
-
The Island of the Day Before
- By: Umberto Eco, William Weaver - translator
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1643, in the still un-chartered waters of the South Seas, Roberto della Griva survives the wreck of his ship, the Amaryllis, only to find himself a castaway on another ship, the mysteriously deserted Daphne. Why is she deserted? Or is someone still on board? Get ready for a romance of navigation and science in the mid-17th century as told by the internationally acclaimed Umberto Eco.
-
-
Puzzling and entrancing
- By Gary on 01-03-04
By: Umberto Eco, and others
-
The Dawn Watch
- Joseph Conrad in a Global World
- By: Maya Jasanoff
- Narrated by: Laurel Lekfow
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: These forces shaped Joseph Conrad's destiny at the dawn of the 20th century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth.
-
-
Poor Narration Mars Excellent Book
- By Elizabeth on 11-29-17
By: Maya Jasanoff
-
Henry Miller on Writing
- By: Henry Miller
- Narrated by: Ian Patrick Mendes
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some of the most rewarding pages in Henry Miller's books concern his self-education as a writer. He tells, as few great writers ever have, how he set his goals, how he discovered the excitement of using words, how the books he read influenced him, and how he learned to draw on his own experience.
-
-
Reader does not speak French
- By Wingfoot CwR on 07-18-22
By: Henry Miller
-
The Divine Magnet
- Herman Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy.
-
-
im happy I purchased it
- By Dibs on 07-23-20
By: Herman Melville
-
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- By: Jules Verne, Lisa Church - editor
- Narrated by: Rebecca K. Reynolds
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jules Verne’s classic science fiction fantasy carries its hero - Professor Aronnax of the Museum of Paris - on a thrilling and dangerous journey far below the waves to see what creatures live in the ocean’s depths. In the process, Verne imagined a vessel that had not yet been invented: the submarine.
-
-
Didn't enjoy the performance.
- By Nick A. Wyse on 12-10-19
By: Jules Verne, and others
-
On Leopard Rock
- A Life of Adventures
- By: Wilbur Smith
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wilbur Smith has lived an incredible life of adventure, and now he shares the extraordinary true stories that have inspired his fiction. From being attacked by lions to close encounters with deadly reef sharks, from getting lost in the African bush without water to crawling the precarious tunnels of gold mines, from marlin fishing with Lee Marvin to near death from crash-landing a Cessna airplane, from brutal school days to redemption through writing and falling in love, Wilbur Smith tells us the intimate stories of his life that have been the raw material for his fiction.
-
-
This Gives You a Look Into Wilbur Smiths Life
- By Michele Haines on 12-12-19
By: Wilbur Smith
-
The Island of the Day Before
- By: Umberto Eco, William Weaver - translator
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1643, in the still un-chartered waters of the South Seas, Roberto della Griva survives the wreck of his ship, the Amaryllis, only to find himself a castaway on another ship, the mysteriously deserted Daphne. Why is she deserted? Or is someone still on board? Get ready for a romance of navigation and science in the mid-17th century as told by the internationally acclaimed Umberto Eco.
-
-
Puzzling and entrancing
- By Gary on 01-03-04
By: Umberto Eco, and others
-
The Dawn Watch
- Joseph Conrad in a Global World
- By: Maya Jasanoff
- Narrated by: Laurel Lekfow
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: These forces shaped Joseph Conrad's destiny at the dawn of the 20th century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth.
-
-
Poor Narration Mars Excellent Book
- By Elizabeth on 11-29-17
By: Maya Jasanoff
-
Henry Miller on Writing
- By: Henry Miller
- Narrated by: Ian Patrick Mendes
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some of the most rewarding pages in Henry Miller's books concern his self-education as a writer. He tells, as few great writers ever have, how he set his goals, how he discovered the excitement of using words, how the books he read influenced him, and how he learned to draw on his own experience.
-
-
Reader does not speak French
- By Wingfoot CwR on 07-18-22
By: Henry Miller
-
The Divine Magnet
- Herman Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy.
-
-
im happy I purchased it
- By Dibs on 07-23-20
By: Herman Melville
-
The Call of Cthulhu
- By: H. P. Lovecraft
- Narrated by: Felbrigg Napoleon Herriot
- Length: 1 hr and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Professor Angell was an expert on ancient languages. When a young man brought a grotesque carving to his office that contained a strain of hieroglyphics that were unreadable to all, it started the strangest and most horrific research of his life. The statue would lead the professor and is great-nephew to discover the awful truth of the cult of Cthulhu and what its existence meant for the future of mankind.
-
-
Good story, not very good narrator
- By Max F on 06-03-17
By: H. P. Lovecraft
-
Gould's Book of Fish
- By: Richard Flanagan
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once upon a time that was called 1828, before all the living things on the land and the fishes in the sea were destroyed, there was a man named William Buelow Gould, a convict in Van Dieman's Land who fell in love with a black woman and discovered too late that to love is not safe. Silly Billy Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer, forger, fantasist, was condemned to live in the most brutal penal colony in the British Empire, and there ordered to paint a book of fish. Once upon a time, miraculous things happened....
-
-
Wonderful, Funny & Oh So Well Written!
- By cowgirl877 on 06-23-17
By: Richard Flanagan
-
In the Heart of the Sea
- The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819 the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, and disease and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.
-
-
Audio must have been fixed
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-18
-
Melville in Love
- The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
- By: Michael Shelden
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book". Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
-
-
intriguing
- By Jean on 06-18-16
By: Michael Shelden