Great product!Product DescriptionFrom the author of?Mayflower and Valiant Ambition the riveting bestseller tells the story of the true events that inspired Melville's Moby-Dick.?
Winner of the National Book Award Nathaniel Philbrick's book is a fantastic saga of survival and adventure steeped in the lore of whaling with deep resonance in American literature and history.
In 1820 the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea recently adapted into a major feature film starring Chris Hemsworth is a book for the ages.Amazon.com ReviewThe appeal of Dava Sobel's Longitude was in part that it illuminated a little-known piece of history through a series of captivating incidents and engaging personalities. Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea is certainly cast from the same mold?? examining the 19th-century Pacific whaling industry through the arc of the sinking of the whaleship Essex by a boisterous sperm whale. The story that inspired Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick has a lot going for it--derring-do?? cannibalism?? rescue--and Philbrick proves an amiable and well-informed narrator?? providing both context and detail. We learn about the importance and mechanics of blubber production--a vital source of oil--and we get the nuts and bolts of harpooning and life aboard whalers. We are spared neither the nitty-gritty of open boats nor the sucking of human bones dry. By sticking to the tried and tested Longitude formula?? Philbrick has missed a slight trick