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Why Read Moby-Dick?
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
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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.
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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)
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Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
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Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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He Held Radical Light
- The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art
- By: Christian Wiman
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Christian Wiman explores the relationships between art and faith, death and fame, heaven and oblivion. Above all, He Held Radical Light is a love letter to poetry, filled with moving, surprising, and sometimes funny encounters with the poets Wiman has known.
By: Christian Wiman
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Nostromo
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.
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Wow!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-11-03
By: Joseph Conrad
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Jack London
- An American Life
- By: Earle Labor
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast - an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed best-selling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf.
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Glad I chose this
- By SherryH on 04-14-19
By: Earle Labor
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On Elizabeth Bishop
- By: Colm Tóibín
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In this book novelist Colm Tóibín offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of one of his most important literary influences - the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Ranging across her poetry, prose, letters, and biography, Tóibín creates a vivid picture of Bishop while also revealing how her work has helped shape his sensibility as a novelist and how her experiences of loss and exile resonate with his own.
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ELIZABETH BISHOP
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 05-19-16
By: Colm Tóibín
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Figuring
- By: Maria Popova
- Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.
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Stunning
- By Laura on 03-12-19
By: Maria Popova
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Between Man and Beast
- An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World By Storm
- By: Monte Reel
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
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In 1856 Paul Du Chaillu marched into the equatorial wilderness of West Africa determined to bag an animal that, according to legend, was nothing short of a monster. When he emerged three years later, the summation of his efforts only hinted at what he'd experienced in one of the most dangerous regions on earth. Armed with an astonishing collection of zoological specimens, Du Chaillu leapt from the physical challenges of the jungle straight into the center of the biggest issues of the time.
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Extraordinary book! Masterpiece.
- By BVerité on 04-23-13
By: Monte Reel
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How to Survive the Titanic
- The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay
- By: Frances Wilson
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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On the terrifying, chaotic night of April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was sinking, Bruce J. Ismay, the ship's owner, made a decision that would save his life - and end it. Ismay boarded a lifeboat meant for women and children, and within days became The Most Talked-of Man in the World. Branded a coward, he became a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Joseph Conrad's legendary eponymous character, Lord Jim.
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Not especially uplifting, but quite good
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-12
By: Frances Wilson
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In the Kingdom of Ice
- The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: The North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever." The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship.
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Superb tale that unravels at an iceburg's pace
- By Mel on 03-19-15
By: Hampton Sides
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The Sea Wolf
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
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Jack London worshiped strong and virtuous heroes, and his stories give great weight to the inevitable triumph of good over evil. His telling of the adventures of Humphrey van Weydon in The Sea Wolf is in keeping with this theme of moral man. His powerful and gripping saga of van Weydon's capture by a seal-hunting ship and the ensuing tangles with its dreaded captain, Wolf Larsen, makes this a classic American tale of peril and victory.
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I won the lottery!
- By Bill on 08-11-17
By: Jack London
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I Am Dynamite!
- A Life of Nietzsche
- By: Sue Prideaux
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
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Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
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Fascinating; tragic
- By Cineaste21 on 12-30-18
By: Sue Prideaux
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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.
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There once were some (wo)men in Nantucket...
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Solid narration of a timeless classic
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excellent radio drama!
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Excellent, EXCELLENT reading!
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Terrible Narration
- By Linda on 12-28-18
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There once were some (wo)men in Nantucket...
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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.
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Audio must have been fixed
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-18
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Bunker Hill
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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.
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Another Fantastic Story by Philbrick
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The Last Stand
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Little Bighorn and Custer are names synonymous in the American imagination with unmatched bravery and spectacular defeat. Mythologized as Custer's Last Stand, the June 1876 battle has been equated with other famous last stands, from the Spartans' defeat at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo.
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A filtered rehash for these more enlightened times
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Sea of Glory
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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.
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A good solid voyage of discovery
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Moby-Dick
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Labeled variously a realistic story of whaling, a romance of unusual adventure and eccentric characters, a symbolic allegory, and a drama of heroic conflict, Moby Dick is first and foremost a great story. It has both the humor and poignancy of a simple sea ballad, as well as the depth and universality of a grand odyssey.
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I Had No Idea Melville Was So Funny
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By: Herman Melville
What listeners say about Why Read Moby-Dick?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- 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.
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- Jeffrey Ard
- 06-25-21
Excellent Book!
Very well written and fills you with excitement to read Moby-Dick. Loved Into the Heart of the Sea and reading Mayflower by him now. Phenomenal author and love his works and love the flow of this book as he gives history as well as understanding of the characters in the story.
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- 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!
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2 people found this helpful
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- EV
- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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!
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- Texas Mama
- 02-06-23
A good appetizer or dessert for the novel
No stunning revelations, here or wildly original scholarship. However, Philbrick’s gloss is solid, and his writing is exquisite. I read this after finishing the novel and enjoyed the opportunity to see a highlight reel and get a taste of another’s interpretations and insights. He also applies biographical details and texts from Melville’s life to deepen your reading.
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- 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.
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18 people found this helpful