Wow. Spot on, kerpow! I personally have an odd relationship with Melville's Moby Dick, after spending at least 5 years on every new years eve resolving to resolve to read it... i always kept that resolution until the year i finally broke down and read it... and then read it again... and again. I knew i loved the narrator's voice, that i adored Queequeg, and that i could tell there was more to it than i was seeing on the surface. Philbrick nails all the little things i thought about but didnt delve deeper on, and tells more of Melville's experience of writing the book and how it kept changing until it became what it is now. If you wanted to hear more about the yarn of the white whale, and have a disturbingly funny impression of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a recluse being attacked into friendship by the enthusiastic Melville, then this is the go-to book for you.