The Last Whalers
Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life
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Narrated by:
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Jay Snyder
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By:
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Doug Bock Clark
About this listen
In this "immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable first book [with] the texture and color of a first-rate novel" (New York Times), journalist Doug Bock Clark tells the epic story of the world's last subsistence whalers and the threats posed to a tribe on the brink.
A New York Times Notable Book
A New York Times Editors' Choice
Winner of Lowell Thomas Travel Book Award Silver Medal
Finalist for William Saroyan International Writing Prize
Longlisted for Mountbatten Award for Best Book
Telegraph Best Travel Books of the Year
Hampshire Gazette Best Books of 2019
One of the favorite books of Yuval Noah Harari, author of the classic best seller Sapiens, "on the subject of humanity's place in the world" (via Airmail).
On a volcanic island in the Savu Sea so remote that other Indonesians call it "The Land Left Behind" live the Lamalerans: a tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who are the world's last subsistence whalers. They have survived for half a millennium by hunting whales with bamboo harpoons and handmade wooden boats powered by sails of woven palm fronds. But now, under assault from the rapacious forces of the modern era and a global economy, their way of life teeters on the brink of collapse.
Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, one of a handful of Westerners who speak the Lamaleran language, lived with the tribe across three years, and he brings their world and their people to vivid life in this gripping story of a vanishing culture. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, toils to earn his harpoon and provide for his ailing grandparents, while Ika, his indomitable younger sister, is eager to forge a life unconstrained by tradition, and to realize a star-crossed love. Frans, an aging shaman, tries to unite the tribe in order to undo a deadly curse. And Ignatius, a legendary harpooner entering retirement, labors to hand down the Ways of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would secretly rather become a DJ in the distant tourist mecca of Bali.
Deeply empathetic and richly reported, The Last Whalers is a riveting, powerful chronicle of the collision between one of the planet's dwindling indigenous peoples and the irresistible enticements and upheavals of a rapidly transforming world.
©2019 Doug Bock Clark (P)2019 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"A vital, immersive, and elegant debut...With glittering prose and a novelist's knack for storytelling, Clark carries readers to the heart of this community...Reminiscent of Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Clark's book intimately details, with empathy and grace, the tribe's value system and the physical world on which they depend...We often think of indigenous groups as living in remote locations, on the edges of the modern world, but Clark reverses this proposition, using the stories of these whalers to help us understand just what it looks like when the earth reaches carrying capacity and how humans might in turn respond."—Elizabeth Rush, New York Times Book Review
"An immersive and absorbing chronicle that takes the reader deep into the lives of this tribe and is told with a richness of interior detail that renders their lives, and the choices they face, not just comprehensible but somehow familiar...Clark's writing about the ocean and its creatures is superb, so vivid that the reader can feel the sting of salt water up the nose...The magic in this work is Clark's decision to cede the story over to the Lamalerans themselves. In doing so, he captures the drama of the tribe as it attempts to navigate new opportunities that, while enticing, may bring about the extinction of their culture...Whether that culture will, in the end, withstand mounting pressures from the outside remains to be seen. If it doesn't, The Last Whalers will at least document all that has been lost."—Gabriel Thompson, San Francisco Chronicle
"A fascinating debut...Accessible and empathetic...Clark creates a thoughtful look at the precariousness of cultural values and the lure of modernization in the developing world."—Publishers Weekly
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Story
Declan O Donnell has sailed out of Oregon and deep into the vast, wild ocean, having had just finally enough of other people and their problems. He will go it alone, he will be his own country, he will be beholden to and beloved of no one. No man is an island, my butt, he thinks. I am that very man.... But the galaxy soon presents him with a string of odd, entertaining, and dangerous passengers, who become companions of every sort and stripe. The Plover is the story of their adventures and misadventures in the immense blue country one of their company calls Pacifica.
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Poetry, the sea and finally story
- By WA islander on 09-12-15
By: Brian Doyle
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Captain Nemo
- The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius
- By: Kevin J. Anderson
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Captain Nemo is the fictional life story of one of Jules Verne's most memorable characters from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. It covers his boyhood friendship with the dreamer Jules Verne, adventures aboard sailing ships, battles with pirates, and survival on a mysterious deserted island. Each time he returns home to his beloved France, Captain Nemo shares the tales of his exploits with the struggling writer Verne.
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THERE'S MORE TO THE WORLD THAN NAUT
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-16-13
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The Fisherman
- By: John Langan
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story.
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The Horror of Loss
- By Jim N on 04-20-17
By: John Langan
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Getting Stoned with the Savages
- A Trip through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu
- By: J. Maarten Troost
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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After two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, Troost was in no hurry to return to the South Pacific until he began to feel remarkably out of place in modern America. He knew it was time to set off again for parts unknown. Here he tells the story of his time on Vanuatu, a cluster of islands where he struggles against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes but finds himself swept up in the laid-back, clothing-optional lifestyle of the islanders.
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My new favorite author!
- By L. Worthington on 08-28-07
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I Heard the Owl Call My Name
- By: Margaret Craven
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The touching story of a young, mortally ill priest who spends his last days working among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia.
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Uncanny insight...
- By MetaThink on 03-22-15
By: Margaret Craven
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The Lobster Chronicles
- Life on a Very Small Island
- By: Linda Greenlaw
- Narrated by: Linda Greenlaw
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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After 17 years at sea, Linda Greenlaw figured it was time to take a break from her career as a swordboat captain. She felt she needed to return to Isle au Haut - a tiny island seven miles from the Maine coast with a population of 70 year-round residents, 30 of whom were her relatives. She would pursue a simpler life; move back in with her parents and get to know them again; become a professional lobsterman; and find a guy, build a house, have kids, and settle down. But all doesn't go as planned.
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Was this narration sped up?
- By Linda Vanaman on 10-12-15
By: Linda Greenlaw
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Crossing the Waters
- Following Jesus Through the Storms, the Fish, the Doubt, and the Seas
- By: Leslie Leyland Fields
- Narrated by: Pamela Klein
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The Gospels are dramatic and incredibly wet, set in a rich maritime culture on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Yet we've missed much of this perspective - until now. Leslie Leyland Fields, a seasoned Alaskan fisherwoman, leads us across the waters of time and culture out onto the Sea of Galilee, through a rugged season of commercial fishing with her family in Alaska, and through the waters of the New Testament beside the ragtag fishermen disciples.
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Breath taking!
- By Meg White Haven Hill on 09-13-17
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Hook's Tale
- Being the Account of an Unjustly Villainized Pirate Written by Himself
- By: John Leonard Pielmeier
- Narrated by: John Leonard Pielmeier
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Long defamed as a vicious pirate, Captain James Cook (a.k.a Hook) was in fact a dazzling wordsmith who left behind a vibrant, wildly entertaining, and entirely truthful memoir. His chronicle offers a counter narrative to the works of J.M. Barrie, a "dour Scotsman" whose spurious accounts got it all wrong. Now, award-winning playwright John Pielmeier is proud to present this crucial historic artifact in its entirety for the first time.
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A new take on a classic villain
- By Stefan Filipovits on 04-20-19
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Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
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ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Headhunters on My Doorstep
- A True Treasure Island Ghost Story
- By: J. Maarten Troost
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Entertainment Weekly calls acclaimed author and essayist J. Maarten Troost a "funny, candid, and down-to-earth travel companion". Both witty and poignant, Headhunters on My Doorstep follows Troost as he retraces Robert Louis Stevenson’s path through the South Pacific. Somewhere between AA meetings in Tahiti and discovering how the Island of Merrymaking got its name, Troost reconnects with himself, his family, and the beauty of life.
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Another great South Pacific Book from Mr. Troost
- By Michael on 08-29-13
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Bad Indians
- A Tribal Memoir
- By: Deborah A. Miranda
- Narrated by: Deborah Miranda
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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This beautiful and devastating book - part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir - should be required for anyone seeking to learn about California Indian history, past and present. Deborah A. Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems. The result is a work of literary art that is wise, angry, and playful all at once, a compilation that will break your heart and teach you to see the world anew.
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Bad recording
- By Aspyn Maes on 09-18-21
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The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
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Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
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Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
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Island of a Thousand Mirrors
- By: Nayomi Munaweera
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Yasodhara tells the story of her own Sinhala family, rich in love, with everything they could ask for. As a child in idyllic Colombo, social hierarchies, their parents’ ambitions, teenage love shape Yasodhara and her siblings’ lives, and, subtly, the differences between Tamil and Sinhala people; but the peace is shattered by the tragedies of war. Yasodhara's family escapes to Los Angeles. But Yasodhara's life has already become intertwined with a young Tamil girl's.
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Pronunciation
- By Mahidevran on 04-07-18
By: Nayomi Munaweera
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Indonesia, Etc.
- Exploring the Improbable Nation
- By: Elizabeth Pisani
- Narrated by: Jan Cramer
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Bewitched by Indonesia for twenty-five years, Elizabeth Pisani recently traveled 26,000 miles around the archipelago in search of the links that bind this impossibly disparate nation. Fearless and funny, Pisani shares her deck space with pigs and cows, bunks down in a sulfurous volcano, and takes tea with a corpse. Along the way, she observes Big Men with child brides, debates corruption and cannibalism, and ponders "sticky" traditions that cannot be erased.
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Bill Bryson channels Margaret Mead
- By John S. on 09-01-14
By: Elizabeth Pisani
What listeners say about The Last Whalers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Grant Denbow
- 07-10-19
Great story
It made me rethink my life!!! To hear about the everyday day life of these men and women made me realize how blessed i am as an American nd how easy we have! beautiful writing!
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- arh8
- 10-11-21
Good book on hunter-gatherer tribe in Indonesia
Would rate it highly, alongside "Don't Sleep, there are Snakes", and "Death in the Rainforest", as a thoughtful account of one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes remaining today. Only niggle is that the narrator completely butchers the few words and paragraphs of Lamaleran/ Indonesian language text pronunciation. It's so bad that it's incomprehensible to a speaker of Bahasa Indonesia; wouldn't have taken much effort to improve on that.
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2 people found this helpful
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- ASUfan4life
- 08-04-19
Super interesting look at an indigenous tribe
In the modern world, it is hard to imagine the way of life of different indigenous people so much different than our own in western civilization. This was an interesting look and forced me to consider the negative impacts of the modern ways of life.
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- Kevin Ebel
- 06-27-23
The Leviathan
The book opens with a quote from Hobbs’s Leviathan, the last chapter closes with a leviathan of another type. In that closing chapter the circle is closed, the philosophical treatise of Hobbs is viewed in a way I hadn’t considered before. “What it may be like for those on the periphery when the State entices “us” to their social contract”.
I’ll be mulling over the underlying questions for some time.
Thanks for your time.
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