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Dec 17, 2009

Adrianne rated it:

I have never, ever, in my LIFE, met a nonfiction book I was unable to put down before. This may be because I am stupid, but I like to think it's because I'm interested in the details. Most nonfiction I've encountered is either written by:

a.) Someone who experienced something interesting, but who can't write about it in an interesting way, or

b.) Someone who perhaps usually writes about things in an interesting way, but who wasn't able to experience the critical subject fir More...

2 comments like (22 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Lisa rated it:

In the ninth grade I had a world history teacher that made each class seem like a fascinating story instead of a boring lecture that can be the standard fare. Nathaniel Philbrick has brought to life the story of the sinking of the Nantucket whale ship Essex by a ferocious sperm whale.

An artist's rendition of the revenge of the sperm whale attacking the Essex:

An actual photo of a sperm whale which is about the size of a school bus:

More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 09, 2010

Aerin rated it:

Once I was on a ship that sank beneath me. So like the men in this book, I understand a little of that terror of being desperate and shipless at sea.

Okay, I wasn't exactly at sea, I was on a lake. And it wasn't so much a ship as a canoe. And it was the 4th of July weekend, so the reason we sank was that the lake was utterly packed with speedboats and jetskis whose combined wakes proved too much for our overloaded bitty canoe. And instead of spending three months adrift in the oce More...

8 comments like (24 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2008

John rated it:

The wreck of the whaling ship Essex in 1819 was a tragedy that haunted its survivors, took on the status of legend in 19th-century America, and inspired Melville's Moby-Dick. Philbrick does a great job not only narrating the wreck and its dire aftermath, but also providing historical context, so that the reader learns quite a bit about both the 19th-century whaling industry and the social history of Nantucket. A solid history that's also a page-turner; quite an accomplishment, and one that's m More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2008

Jared rated it:

Got this book last year as a gift from G. As a sometime New Englander, frequent visitor to Mystic Seaport, and admirer of Melville, this book was right up my alley. I read the whole thing through on a recent cross-country flight.

At the age of 28, George Pollard set out in command of the whaleship "Essex." He had a brilliant reputation, he had the firm trust of the ship's owners, and he had two dozen able and dutiful crewmen ready to follow his orders for endless months at s More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 14, 2008

Ramorx rated it:

I have a perennial seafaring thing going on in my life, despite being completely landlocked in the crucible of San Cristobal at a vertiginous 2200m - for, I don't know, oh, interminable years. Once I worked on a banana ship traversing the Atlantic ocean and despite the factory-like conditions, I loved it. So I devour any books dealing with the sea, hoping that the beautiful aroma of the surf two weeks from land can be conjured up in word or prose.
But most sea books are shite and fail to co More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2008

Rachel rated it:

Not being much into maritime affairs, I have to admit that I didn't expect much from this book, notwithstanding the National Book Award seal. Fortunately, the history of whaling on Nantucket turned out to be pretty darn interesting, particularly when you throw in an attack by a whale and some cannibalism to boot. The second half of the book was far more interesting than the first. Overall, it would have been more captivating if it was styled as a novel rather a history lesson.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2008

Grace rated it:

This book is fascinating! It's the true story of a whaling ship destroyed by a whale, and the survival (or death) of the crew. The event was the partial inspiration for Moby Dick. The book starts off a bit slow, and even a little bit condescending at times about nautical terminology, as the ship prepares for the voyage and leaves Nantucket. But once the trouble begins, it's totally gripping. I actually finished reading it as I was *walking* through an airport to visit a friend, and I was ac More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2009

Fred rated it:

I feel the sea swell beneath the keel as I am pushed suddenly toward the low sky, then the rush of a bow wave rolls against the resting ship, a massive creature slams into the hull, and I am rocked off my feet, arms flailing for a secure hold, until my head collides with the planked deck and the skys turns pale, then gray, then black, and I am enveloped by a foreboding silence.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 22, 2010

Austin rated it:

Based in part on the newly discovered journals of the Essex cabin boy (as I recall), Philbrick brings to light the lives of the crew of the whaleship Essex and their harrowing disaster, death, and survival at sea--the incident that inspired Herman Melville in his writing of Moby Dick. A must for Moby Dick aficionados and for anyone who likes sea stories and / or brilliant narrative non-fiction. So vivid I actually got hungry and thirsty. In fact, I hadn't had such a weird experience of hunger More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2009

Ben rated it:

Wow. An incredible true story. I hung on every page waiting to see how this maritime tragedy ended up. Quite depressing at times. The whaling culture is a fascinating piece of our history. It is easy to see why Herman Melville was attracted to this story. It was a lot easier read than Moby Dick, from what I have heard.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Eleanor rated it:

This book chronicles the voyage and sinking of the whaleship Essex, the story of which was the inspiration of Melville's Moby Dick. Truth is stranger than fiction, however, and when the book opens, we find a second whaling vessel has come upon an open dinghy where there are two emaciated men at either end who are gnawing on the bones of their dead crewmates... It was pretty gruesome, but in an I-can't-stop-reading kind of way. Philbrick has definitely done his research -- he tells a compelling t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2008

Leilani rated it:

Nathanial Philbrick writes in a historically and emotionally engaging way about the doomed whaling voyage of the Essex--which was rammed by an enraged sperm whale in the "offshore grounds" about a thousand miles off the coast of South America. The crew, crammed into three whaleboats, entered into a desperate bid for survival that ended in marooned sailors, killer whale attacks, violent dehydration and finally, cannibalism. I liked how Philbrick addresses issues like race (the black sai More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2009

Colin rated it:

Ohhh yes, a classic indeed.
The tragic tale of the whaleship essex. The words of this book bring vivid images of the oil slicked vessels and blackened oak of the old days of maritime madness. The mostly Quaker community out on the island of Nantucket was at once a bustling whaling industry. Large square riggers loaded to the bilge with casks of hard tack, salt beef and whale oil sluggishly drifting in and out of port. I love it, its so... old and salty. Of coarse I obviously don't love who More...

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Jan 26, 2012

Nshslibrary rated it:

Thrashing waves pound against the sturdy hull of the whale ship Essex as it surges through the Atlantic Ocean. Heart of the Sea, a stunning thriller by Nathaniel Philbrick, leaves readers, their eyes amazed, in awe. If you want a book that grabs you in and keeps you hooked, this is the book to read. Nonfiction is one of my favorite genres and this is on my top ten. It’s about a whale ship called the Essex that sets sail, rocking in the sea, off of the coast of Nantucket and is rammed by a sperm More...

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Jan 02, 2012

Aaron rated it:

I just finished reading In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick and it was so good, and I’ve been so bored lately, that I felt an urge to get my thoughts down on paper. Metaphorically.

Even if you’ve never read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (I haven’t), you’ve heard some form of the phrase “There she blows!” (Pronounced, of course, ‘thar’), or you know of the great white whale that the captain obsessively hunts like a fat boy chasing an ice cre More...

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Nov 03, 2011

Richard rated it:

The maiden voyage of Captain George Pollard, Jr., departing Nantucket in August of 1819, aboard the tried, true, and old whaleship Essex was ill fated from the start. Not three days out of port a storm blew up, the inexperienced Captain mishandled the sails, and the ship was "knocked over," took on water, lost provisions, and worse, lost whale boats. It was not an auspicious start, but the Captain and his crew did make it past the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, around the Horn, and More...

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Jun 06, 2011

Trudy rated it:

An account of a real whaling ship that was rammed by a sperm whale back in the 1830s. This event inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick. While many things in the book were interesting, like insights into the "ruling" Nantucket Quaker society, the whalers' hierarchy, and what life was like for them and their families, what stuck with me the most was how terribly the whaling industry treated the whales. The book describes in gory detail how they hunted the whales down, brutally speared More...

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Apr 16, 2011

Boyd rated it:

Very readable account of 1819 whaling expedition gone bad. Thousands of miles from land, the whale ship Essex is rammed by a justifiably annoyed sperm whale. All hands survive the sinking of their ship, but only eight of 20 or so survive the long and tortured three month voyage in small whale boats. The survivors depended on the navigational skills of their Captain and first mate and a disciplined approach to consuming their meagre rations to survive the ordeal. In the end, the men turned t More...

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Jan 23, 2011

Alex rated it:

The Prequel to Moby-Dick

Not enough people have read Moby-Dick, and most people know it has something to do with a white whale and a nut called Ahab – oh yeah, and it starts off something like, “Call me Ishmael.”

All the above information is correct but deceptively vague. The final scene in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick involves the whale ship in the novel, the Pequod, being struck head-on by the giant white sperm whale. Some have question whether a whale would be able to do su More...

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Jan 11, 2011

Jbazelon added it

I thought Heart of the Sea was one of the most unbelievable pieces of writing that i have ever had the pleasure of reading. I could not put it down. It takes place on a place called Nantucket way back when whaling was a big buisness. Whalers would go out for about two years on whaling expeditions catching whales and making them into oil. Whale oil back then was what ran the town of Nantucket. A big whale ship called the Essex sailed out on what was a routine whaling expedition but disaster More...

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Dec 27, 2010

Jim rated it:

I thought this might be as slow as mud but ended up as hooked as a whale. Although it was set in the dim and distant, the characterisations seemed surprisingly modern, even when they were being quoted from journals of the time, and I liked the picture of Nantucket as the seafaring American town par excellence. The whalers lived a hardy life, no doubt, being away three years at a time (and, as befits a modern historian, the author delves into what the women did to amuse themselves without men. Th More...

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Oct 26, 2010

Tony rated it:

I can't quite put my finger on it, but it strikes me that there's a certain strain of superfluousness in the contemporary narrative nonfiction genre. I get the vague sense that there are all too many books coming out that are merely reheating slices of history that have been well documented, but in a way that makes them more digestible to the modern reader. This National Book Award winner is a perfect example. The "Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" isn't exactly obscure -- Herman Melvill More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 08, 2010

Chris rated it:

A compelling and harrowing account of the sinking of the Essex (by a pissed-off 85' sperm whale) and the three-plus month travails of the survivors, nearly all of whom cannibalized their way to safety. It's full of the arcana of whaling and seamanship, which I found surprisingly fascinating, but Philbrick has a tendency to use current knowledge (about starvation, about the complicated psychology of survival, about blahblahblah) to recontextualize the narrative that I found unnecessary and annoy More...

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Aug 04, 2010

Katie rated it:

The second of my Lake Powell books, another water disaster.

Several years ago, after a trip to Nantucket, I read a series of books about whaling, including Moby Dick, Ahab's Wife, and Owen Chase's 1st person account The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex. The tale of the Essex (inspiration for Moby Dick) is incredible...the first known case of a sperm whale attacking a whaleship--the hunters becoming the hunted. The Essex sunk, and her crew of 19 climbed into 3 small whaleboats in the mid More...

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Jul 21, 2010

ICPL added it

Things I now know about sperm whales:

1. They are called the "carpenters of the sea" because their clicking resembles the sound of a hammer.

2. Although they dive deep for food, they can get the bends.

3. In 1820, one rammed the Essex of Nantucket, causing the whaleship to sink and its crew to resort to cannibalism to survive more than three months at sea before rescue (only eight survived).

The third piece of whale trivia is the subject of In the He More...

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Jul 14, 2010

Adam rated it:

True story of a Nantucket whaling ship that was sunk by a sperm whale in in 1820. The story was Melville's inspiration for Moby Dick. The survivors of the attack find themselves thousands of miles from the west coast of South America with nothing but a few scattered life boats and a week's worth of rations. Most of the book is devoted to the sailors' months long journey to safety, including their eventual decision to turn to cannibalism for survival. Much like the book "ALIVE!" this b More...

1 comment like

Jul 12, 2010

John rated it:

The book opens with the finding of two survivors of the Essex. The men, their skin covered in boils and bodies withered from starvation, were found clutching the bones of their former shipmates and sucking the marrow, their last source of sustenance.

From there, Philbrick blends the history of whaling, the island Nantucket, and the men of the Essex on their doomed voyage from day one until the end of their terrifying ordeal. Philbrick weaves a narrative so engaging that I found m More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 21, 2010

David rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jan 02, 2010

Bruce rated it:

On November 20, 1820 the Essex out of Nantucket, cruising the Pacific, was sunk by a furious eighty-ton sperm whale a thousand miles west of Galapagos. This was the beginning of a harrowing sea voyage of 4,500 nautical miles. The crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, decided on a longer eastern course, back to South America. In doing so, they became the cannibals they wanted to avoid.

Three months later two of the saviors were picked up by another Nantucket whaleship the More...

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