Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Why Read Moby-Dick?” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Why Read Moby-Dick?

Nathaniel Philbrick (Goodreads Author)

3.70 · Rating details · 3,140 ratings · 422 reviews

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 bestseller, In the Heart of the Sea, Nat ...more

Get A Copy

Or buy for

Hardcover, 131 pages

Published October 20th 2011 by Viking (first published October 20th 2010)

More Details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Why Read Moby-Dick?, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Sailors as Subjects/Characters

158 books — 11 voters

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

Turn Of The Century Favorites

103 books — 80 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

3.70 ·

Rating details

· 3,140 ratings · 422 reviews

Filter

Sort order

Oct 11, 2016 Riku Sayuj rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-about-books, lit-crit, companions, guides

In these essays which attempt to recreate the mystery of the creation of Moby Dick, Philbrick recreates for us the strange magic of reading Melville as well. The book's aim is to convince a reader who has not read to read. I don't think anybody who has not read Moby Dick should read this - too much is laid bare. Instead, the book should be read a year or two after the novel. Then you will see strange visions resurfacing, new meanings in the mist, and a rekindling of love for the characters you l ...more

flag 28 likes · Like · see review

Apr 18, 2012 Kerrie rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, lit-ra-chah

Author: I LOVE Moby-Dick!!!!
Me: Well, why don't you marry it, then?

Philbrick's obvious love for this book and everything about it is overwhelming. His enthusiasm glows through every sentence.

2 scenarios:
a) If you've never read Moby-Dick before, he makes it sounds like a truly awesome, larger-than-life book, with scenes of such high-pitched excitement that it must needs be read next to the fainting couch.

b) If you have read Moby-Dick already, the vast majority's response would be: "Wait, what? ...more

flag 22 likes · Like · see review

Oct 13, 2016 Clif Hostetler rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: current-events

This book is an impassioned commentary on the multiple layers of meaning found in the novel, Moby-Dick. The author treats the novel with the respect generally given the Bible, and he compares Herman Melville's work favorably with that of Shakespeare as shown in the following quotation.

Reading Shakespeare we know what it is like in any age to be alive. So it is with Moby-Dick, a novel about a whaling voyage to the Pacific that is also about America racing hell bent toward the Civil War and so muc

Reading Shakespeare we know what it is like in any age to be alive. So it is with Moby-Dick, a novel about a whaling voyage to the Pacific that is also about America racing hell bent toward the Civil War and so much more. Contained in the pages of Moby-Dick is nothing less than the genetic code of America—all the promises, problems, conflicts, and ideals that contributed to the outbreak of a revolution in 1775, as well as a Civil War in 1861, and continued to drive this country's march into the future.

This means that whenever a new crisis grips this country, Moby-Dick becomes newly important. It is why subsequent generations have seen Ahab as Hitler during World War II, or as a profit crazed deep drilling oil company in 2010, or as a power crazed Middle Eastern dictator in 2011.

The author in this book provides a credible case for defending the lofty claims put forth in the above quotation. The irony is that when Moby-Dick was first published in the fall of 1851 virtually no one seems to have taken much notice. It wasn't until after World War I that the novel's significance was widely recognized.

If I had been a reader in the late nineteenth century I wouldn't have been able to predict that the book was destined to have a place in the literary canon. When I listened to the audio of the book several years ago I was aware of its reputation as great American literature, but I didn't retain much more than the outline of a long fictional story with some nonfiction side comments about the nineteenth century whaling industry. I am bothered by my lack of admiration because what it means is that if I happen to cross paths with the next great work of literature I probably won't be able to recognize its potential.

This book's author, Nathaniel Philbrick, in additional to exploring the beauty and skill of the book's prose also provides some history about the life of Herman Melville and his experiences while writing the book. I found it interesting that Melville's first draft did not include the Ahab character as captain of the ship. Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne for the first time after the first draft, and it is probably from him that Melville was inspired to add Ahab with his driven and tormented soul. As a matter of fact Hawthorne was something of an inspirational muse for Melville. Hawthorne in return was encouraging and supportive but probably did not reciprocate Melville's enthusiastic admiration.

Melville was thirty-two years old at the time Moby-Dick was published and lived to be seventy-two when he died in 1891. It's sad that in most of his last thirty years of his life he probably believed the passions and pathos of his younger years which had been invested in the writing of Moby-Dick were little more than a fading personal memory unappreciated by anybody else.

"What Moby-Dick needed it turned out was space, the distance that was required for its themes and images to resonate unfettered by the turmoil and passions that inspired them. Once free of its own historical moment Moby-Dick became the seemingly timeless source of meaning that it is today."

The following is a link to some additional quotations from this book:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes...

...more

flag 17 likes · Like · see review

Oct 12, 2011 Gabe rated it really liked it

Here is that rare piece of criticism that not only gives you a deeper appreciation for its subject, but also compels you to revisit it. In 127 pages, Philbrick makes his points succinctly, supporting them with some of the "Moby-Dick"'s best passages. Among them: Ishmael's emotional and philosophical center, the irreconcilability of heartless business and religion's idealized benevolence and the difference between Ahab's "urgent, soul-singed probing into the meaning of life" and the crew's intere ...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

May 08, 2012 Steve rated it liked it

Shelves: lit-crit

I enjoyed this introduction (or for me, re-introduction) to Moby Dick, which is one of my all-time favorite novels. The reason I'm only rating this 3 stars, is that Philbrick only scratches the surface of the novel. Philbrick populates his short book, with a lot of short chapters. Many of these chapters (such as "Ahab," "Poetry," "Hawthorne," etc.), which run on average about 3-5 pages, could easily be expanded into much longer discussions. In fact, some of these chapters could easily be books t ...more

flag 12 likes · Like · see review

Nov 10, 2011 Tyler Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: on-reading

I am conflicted. I think Why Read Moby Dick? By Nathaniel Philbrick is an important book that everyone over the age of eighteen should read, but it is also a book that I wish was better than it is.

In my opinion Moby Dick is the most important novel ever written, but I have always had difficulty explaining why I feel this way. I am grateful to Philbrick for elegantly arguing that the novel transcends the time it was written in and has relevancy, even urgency, to those us living one hundred and si I am conflicted. I think Why Read Moby Dick? By Nathaniel Philbrick is an important book that everyone over the age of eighteen should read, but it is also a book that I wish was better than it is.

In my opinion Moby Dick is the most important novel ever written, but I have always had difficulty explaining why I feel this way. I am grateful to Philbrick for elegantly arguing that the novel transcends the time it was written in and has relevancy, even urgency, to those us living one hundred and sixty years after its original publication. This alone makes me recommend it, although I still do not feel completely satisfied. I do not think Philbrick is convincing enough that a non-believer would be won over. Since the only people I know who want to read this book have already read Moby Dick – and loved it – it makes me think perhaps he was right to adopt a “preaching to the choir” approach, but I still wish it reached out more to the unconverted. I also found the book to be a compilation of unrelated points rather than an artful construction where each point supports a central argument.

While I greatly enjoyed the passages about Melville’s friendship with Nathanial Hawthorne, I don’t see how they strengthen the argument Moby Dick is a great book. On the one hand he writes (correctly, I think) that Melville’s genius was having the prescience to create a novel that would become more relevant with the passing of time. Exactly! Why then does he spend so much time discussing the historical context the novel was written in? To repeat: Moby Dick transcends the Nineteenth Century and its many messages are more important in 2011 than they were in 1851. So less about what some editor in New York in 1851 had to say and more about what a cab driver in Calgary in 2011 can learn from the book.

Philbrick also makes the common mistake of portraying Moby Dick as The Great American Novel. Moby Dick is so much more than that! It’s not only about America but all humankind – the relationship of all humanity to God and Nature - and it needs to be read by all of us who are the crew of this fragile boat called Earth.

In short, Philbrick did not go far enough.

Ultimately, for all its universality, Moby Dick is a book that speaks to its readers individually. By reading Why Read Moby Dick I learned what the novel has to say to Nathaniel Philbrick, and while some of it overlaps with my own experience of the book, it may or may not have anything to do with what Moby Dick has to say to you.
So, should you read Why Read Moby Dick? Yes, you should. But it’s even more important that you read Moby Dick.
...more

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Apr 26, 2016 Roger Brunyate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

An Engaging Shipmate

I have had my Norton Critical Edition of Melville's Moby-Dick on my shelves for four years now. I meant to start the day I bought it, but its 425 pages of small-print text, plus another 300 of supplementary materials, just proved too daunting. Until I came upon this beautifully produced slim volume that, like an attentive tour guide, welcomed me aboard and promised to keep me company the entire voyage. The result, embarking on Melville with Philbrick by my side, turned into o An Engaging Shipmate

I have had my Norton Critical Edition of Melville's Moby-Dick on my shelves for four years now. I meant to start the day I bought it, but its 425 pages of small-print text, plus another 300 of supplementary materials, just proved too daunting. Until I came upon this beautifully produced slim volume that, like an attentive tour guide, welcomed me aboard and promised to keep me company the entire voyage. The result, embarking on Melville with Philbrick by my side, turned into one of the most stimulating weeks of reading I have enjoyed in ages.

This is no Cliffs Notes. Philbrick offers no chapter summaries or lists of characters. Instead, he shares his thoughts in a series of essays, some keeping closely to the text, some striking off from it: "The Gospels in This Century," "Landlessness," "Desperado Philosophy," "Nantucket," and "Chowder"—the titles of the first five will give some hint of their variety. But the chapters nonetheless follow the course of the novel. Reading Philbrick is like taking a sorbet between courses of a rich meal. It settles the palate, enabling one to digest what one has just read. It sharpens the senses for what it to come. And the simple contrast—small book after large, thick pages after thin, generous spacing after tight type—made it a physical refreshment too. I found it did not matter whether I read the relevant Philbrick essay before or after the chapter to which it mainly refers: the one whetted my anticipation, making the Melville words almost familiar; the other pointed out things I might almost have missed, often sending me back to read them again.

One thing that Philbrick especially did for me, as a foreigner reading an American classic—some might say the American classic—was to focus my mind on its continuing national relevance. "Contained in the pages of Moby-Dick is nothing less than the genetic code of America: all the promises, problems, conflicts, and ideals that contributed to the outbreak of a revolution in 1775 as well as a civil war in 1861 and continue to drive this country's ever-contentious march into the future. This means that whenever a new crisis grips this country, Moby-Dick becomes newly important." He backs this up all along the way, analyzing Ahab as demagogue and dictator, and making reference to present-day concerns such as dependence of fossil fuels, global warming, and species extinction.

I was heartened by hearing Philbrick say "I am not one of those purists who insist on reading the entire untruncated text at all costs," as I fully intended to skip judiciously myself. In the event, I did not do so, though sometimes I sped up. And in his chapter "A Mighty, Messy Book," Philbrick seems to reverse his original advice, urging the reader to hang in there "as the novel follows the erratic whims of Melville's imagination toward the Pacific." Indeed, it was the sheer variousness of Philbrick's book that made me appreciate the protean variety of Melville's. "Moby-Dick is a true epic," he says, "embodying every powerful American archetype as it interweaves creation myths, revenge narratives, folktales, and the conflicting impulses to create and destroy, all played out across the globe's vast oceanic stage." And yet he also says, "There is a wonderful slapdash quality to the book. Melville inserts chapters of biology, history, art criticism, you name it, sometimes at seeming random. […] But Melville is conveying the quirky artlessness of life through his ramshackle art."

Philbrick also made me aware of Melville's debts to Hawthorne and to Shakespeare. Ignorant as I am of American literary history, I did not realize that Melville had virtually finished his whaling novel, then called "The Whale," before he met Hawthorne in 1850, and that Captain Ahab then had no part in it. But reading and then meeting Hawthorne, Melville saw him as an under-appreciated genius possessed by a "great power of blackness." As though recognizing that his own novel lacked this fourth or fifth dimension—moral, infernal, supernatural, call it what you will—Melville went back and rewrote the entire book. It is fascinating to imagine how the novel would have been without Ahab. You will still have had those brilliant descriptions, the cornucopia of information, the in-the-moment action of the whaling sequences, and the pervasive humor which was one of my biggest surprises in reading. But the knowledge that they constitute a second layer added later gives mesmerizing power to the slow build-up of foreboding created by the prophet of Nantucket, the deep mystery of Ahab, the tawny Islanders that emerge as his Myrmidons from their hiding place in the hold when the first whale is sighted, the moral discussions between Ahab and his sane lieutenant Starbuck, and the descent (or ascent) into the wild poetic madness of King Lear on the heath as the final showdown approaches. Oh, it is an amazing book! But without Philbrick at my side, I think I would have gone ashore long since. ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 02, 2011 James Murphy rated it really liked it

I came to Why Read Moby-Dick excitedly because I have the yen to reread Melville's novel and hope to next year. I thought Philbrick might provide me with new interpretive keys to inform my reread. I don't think he did. He downplays interpretation, in fact, encouraging the reader to consider it in naturalistic terms. He plainly states that the white whale isn't a symbol. It's what it seems to be: an aggressive sperm whale who happens to be an albino. Any meaning assigned to him beyond that, any b ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2015 Carmen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Manages to not only inspire the reader to take on Moby Dick without being preachy or taking a lecturing tone, but genuinely conveys the love and enthusiasm of the author. Philbrick is a lifelong student of the book and as such his insights, collected esoterica concerning Moby Dick and Melville combine to produce not just a fanboy gushing over his favorite book, but a reading that shows how we are never far away from this book in our national and social concerns as Americans. From the mechanisms ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Dec 26, 2012 Mikey B. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary

This hi-lights the great passages found in the novel by Hermann Melville. And what a unique novel it is – there is no other story quite like it. As Mr. Philbrick suggests there are several stories or themes or myths interwoven within it – all told with an inspiring realism. All at the same time, the book is intense, tangible and magic. Melville has an uncanny ability to “flip the coin” – dwell on something from one perspective and examine it from an entirely different viewpoint. If there is any ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 03, 2011 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-reads, first-reads, non-fiction

This review is based on an Advanced Reader's Copy - thank you Penguin Books!

I recently finished reading Moby Dick which I enjoyed, but found occasionally off topic and meandering. So many people have described MB as the ultimate American novel. Although it was good, I wasn't positive that it deserved that accolade. Unlike Moby Dick, Nathaniel Philbrick's book Why Read Moby-Dick? is short - it's really a set of essays about various characters and features of the book. But in spite of its length, ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

May 17, 2016 W.D. Clarke rated it really liked it

Should be titled: Why Re-read Moby Dick, since, as an introduction, I can't see this being all that helpful before one dives in and lingers over Melville's masterpiece. Really, you need to have immersed yourself in the breadth, depth and ambition of Melville's mind, and to luxuriate in the allusive poetry of his prose to really appreciate what Phibrick's book has to offer, which is (for this reader at least) akin to a breathless tourist's photo album. It is a forgetful reader's aide-memoire, as ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 30, 2013 Gaijinmama rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-criticism

I hated Moby Dick in high school. Absolutely loathed it. I liked Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor and Bartleby, the Scrivener but the one about the whale drove me absolutely freaking nuts and, although I was a huge bookworm, and had a really excellent English teacher that year, I barely got through it.
Well, Nathaniel Philbrick has changed my mind. I'm rethinking Moby, now that I know a little of what writing his masterpiece did to Melville, how much of his soul he poured into this book, how strongl ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 07, 2019 Jamie rated it really liked it

I was too young the first time I read Moby Dick, still in my teens and driven more by adolescent bragging rights than literary fulfillment, as in, “You read all three books of The Lord of the Rings? How nice. Well, I read Moby Dick, and I’m thinking about starting War and Peace.” (Note, I still haven’t read War and Peace but I did recently get a copy of the new translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky, so it is working its way up my to-read list.) I actually liked Moby Dick that first time, but it I was too young the first time I read Moby Dick, still in my teens and driven more by adolescent bragging rights than literary fulfillment, as in, “You read all three books of The Lord of the Rings? How nice. Well, I read Moby Dick, and I’m thinking about starting War and Peace.” (Note, I still haven’t read War and Peace but I did recently get a copy of the new translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky, so it is working its way up my to-read list.) I actually liked Moby Dick that first time, but it confused the hell out of me. I kept thinking to myself, “I thought this was going to be a book about killing a whale. Why is most of it about other things entirely, like rope?” It took me awhile to understand that the whale was a symbol, and the book was really about the corruption of power, the madness of revenge, the choices we make for good and evil, and the consequences we live – or die – with.

Shakespeare has a wonderful quote in Julius Caesar, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.” Not only does the opportunity have to be present, but you must also be ready to seize the moment. I wasn’t ready the first time I read Moby Dick.

Why Read Moby Dick is a series of essays that look at the historical, literary, and symbolic dimensions of Melville’s book, arguing that it should not be seen as just an artifact of 19th century America. It is instead a timeless classic, an examination of lives and circumstances that can be abstracted to apply to all times and all places. Every generation must face its demons, those of its own making and those that are thrust upon it by circumstances. Who will take the easy road and follow the demagogues, and who will make a hard stand for what is right, accept the consequences, and face a pitiless fate?

At the time of its writing the United States was stumbling toward civil war, and Melville used his book to encapsulate the contradictions that were pulling society apart. Although founded with ringing declarations of freedom, justice, and equality, half the country’s economy was dependent on slave labor, and even among the free citizens life for most was a brutal struggle for survival; justice and equality were for those who could afford them. The crew of the Pequod reflected these struggles. Made up of men from all over the world, their lives were difficult and dangerous, subject to harsh discipline, but most of the profits of the voyage would go to the already rich owners back in Nantucket who never had to face the dangers of the deep.

Ahab has become the prototype for despotism, and in later decades would be seen as a reflection of Hitler and all the lesser tyrants who seduced followers with promises of glory while leading them to destruction in pursuit of some maniacal destiny. Meanwhile the white whale – not white in the sense of purity, but white as in the pallor of death – would serve as a stand-in for whatever remorseless terrors were waiting to engulf and destroy everything each succeeding generation held dear.

By the time I re-read Moby Dick years later I was able to grasp the extended meanings of Melville’s metaphors, to see the reflections of Ahab, Ishmael, and Starbuck in contemporary society, and even to laugh (or roll my eyes) at the weird jokes that are spread throughout the book. Even so, there was much that went right past me, and I learned a lot by reading Why Read Moby Dick, so I guess I’m going to have to take on that white whale at least once again. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 17, 2018 Tarissa rated it really liked it

This is a fun “quick” book to read (particularly quick, when you've read a 7-week novel of infinite length). This guide can probably help you understand the ginormous novel Moby Dick just a bit better. I know it helped me! There was definitely some elements that I can understand more because of this book. It unlocked some of the layers of Moby Dick. We learn about Melville's life, his friends, and some of his writing projects. We learn about the inspiration behind such a titanic volume about a w ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Sep 13, 2018 Chris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

Excellent musings on the classic Moby Dick. Having just finished that leviathan of a book, I found Philbrick's slim (127pp) book of background info on Melville and interesting comments on certain parts of Moby quite enlightening. Makes for a nice companion to the novel. I'll probably re-read with Moby in hand.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 15, 2019 Karyl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, books-on-books, history, literary-fiction, non-fiction, read-harder-2019

While I had to read quite a few classics in my AP Literature class in high school, Moby-Dick wasn't one of them, much to my father's chagrin. Melville's masterpiece is his favorite book, and I know the fact I have yet to read it is a bit of a disappointment to him. I have, however, read Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, detailing the attack of a sperm whale on the Essex which inspired Melville to write his book.

I live in New England, not far from New Bedfor ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 21, 2015 Kris rated it really liked it

Shelves: want-to-own, audiobooks

Fast, but insightful little analyzation of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. As much as I hated reading Moby Dick itself, this was enjoyable because there were a lot of great connections in here that I had never heard of before. This makes me want to revisit the novel, which is good, I suppose?

Taylor, you'd like this. Read this!

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Mar 03, 2016 Margaret rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, literature-studies, non-fiction

I am working up to the desire to read Moby Dick, daring myself to join the ranks of those who have. I am leery because I have heard of the tedious writing, I am not a fan of endless details. I am thinking about listening to the audio narrated by Anthony Heald and I hope that this will be the catalyst to get me read a well known classic of all time.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 12, 2018 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: literary, classic, personal-library

"Why Read Moby-Dick?" is a short book of essays that examines why Melville's classic is still relevant to modern readers. To be truthful, Nathaniel Philbrick acknowledges that it is tough sell. Most readers come to the classic as a school assignment at a young age and are not ready for it. This is true of me. I read it first as a junior in high school. I may have turned every page, but I had little to no comprehension of what the book was about. Forty plus years I came to it again, this time as ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 11, 2017 Melanti rated it liked it

Shelves: 2017, library, nonfiction

This is somewhat of a "good parts" Cliff Notes version, that worries less about recounting the plot point by point so a student can pass a test and worries more about Philbrick recounting some of his favorite jokes, scenes, and themes, and supports those summaries with some really great quotes. Philbrick is basically hoping his enthusiasm is contagious.

Despite the title, I think a better audience for this book might be those who are reading Moby Dick and are struggling or have already given up. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

May 01, 2017 Cynda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club-classics, classics, essays

Philbrick so loves Moby Dick that he had to tell others in a mass-produced book. Good for me! I read Moby Dick in April because a group I am part of decoded to read this book and as it was on my really-need-to-read list, I read it. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I gave the novel 3☆. Then I read this book. I had to re-review Moby Dick. I will likely be reading the whole thing. All due to this little book of small essays.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 12, 2014 Laura Leaney rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Philbrick's book is an ode to both Moby Dick and to genius. To the burning intensity that is Melville. Philbrick's love for Moby is similar enough to my own that this little book gave me a lot of pleasure. I know very few people who've read (let alone love) Moby Dick so reading this appreciative book was like finding a friend who could validate my own feelings.

No writer can mine Melville's depth in 100 or so pages, and that's not the purpose. Philbrick merely attempts to tell you why you should ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 30, 2016 Chelsea Rae rated it liked it

1. i wish more people/authors/thinkers were given permission to engage with texts like this. this is just a fun, honest book about why philbrick loves moby-dick. it's basically entirely subjective and full of conjecture and a pieced-together narrative that isn't particularly well-supported, and i love it, because this is how i interact with my favorite textual objects too, before i have to wrench myself around and translate that personal, emotional interaction into something that's considered su ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 01, 2011 Kathleen Valentine rated it really liked it

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 w ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 09, 2012 Tuck rated it really liked it

Shelves: essays

highly recommended for anyone who is, has, or is thinking about reading moby dick. philbrick has thought very deeply about the novel and melville and has done lots of research into his life and life in 1850's usa and his friendship with nathaniel Hawthorne so incorporates letters they wrote each other with history and Melville's personal circumstances to take the reader though the book (quickly though, just takes a few hours to read this and 131 pages) and relate some very good insight (maybe no ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2015 Nick rated it liked it

Those who find the idea of reading a 19th-century tome about whaling, homoeroticism and self-aware symbolism concerning the nature of evil off-putting still probably will so having read Nathaniel Philbrick's "Why Read Moby-Dick?" Those who have already read and enjoyed "Moby-Dick" will get a few pleasant hours out of this collection of brief essays by a Melville fanantic and historian of oceans and shipwrecks. If you've ever argued with someone over which chapter of MD is the best (clearly "The ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 02, 2015 Ryan Sargent rated it liked it

A quick read that appears to touch on some of the more important points of Moby Dick. The connection of the books themes to American politics of the 1850s was especially interesting. The book also does a good job of describing Melville's personal relation to the story as well as his state of mind before, during and after authoring the work.

The book is by no means a replacement for actually reading Moby Dick but does offer, as the title suggest, reasons why you should read it.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 21, 2017 Jon rated it really liked it

I was made aware of this book by a Goodreads friend. It's written with passionate enthusiasm by a skilled popularizer who says he has read Moby Dick at least a dozen times. He certainly opened my eyes; but then I read the novel many years ago as an assignment, in complete ignorance about the author. I had no idea it is a young man's book--Melville wrote it at age 31. He had almost completed a version of it when he met the much older and more successful Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had such a tremend ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Sep 03, 2017 Wendy Wakeman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read Moby-Dick last year for the third time, the first not under the pressure of school required reading. And I was blown away. Reading Philbrick's little book was like having someone much more insightful than I point out the good parts. But if you've never read M-D, or even never intend to read M-D, this one is just as worthy. Short chapters, easily digested.
Me, the book led me to decide I'm going in for another round with Melville's original.
N.B.--I'm also a big fan of the podcast The Moby-D ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Manchester Distri...: September 2017 Discussion: "Why Read Moby-Dick?"	8	8	Sep 20, 2017 09:12AM

Readers Also Enjoyed

Genres

Nonfiction

112 users

Writing > Books About Books

27 users

Literature

27 users

History

25 users

Criticism > Literary Criticism

22 users

Classics

21 users

See top shelves…

About Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick

1,854 followers

Philbrick was Brown’s first Intercollegiate All-American sailor in 1978; that year he won the Sunfish North Americans in Barrington, RI; today he and his wife Melissa sail their Beetle Cat Clio and their Tiffany Jane 34 Marie-J in the waters surrounding Nantucket Island.

After grad school, Philbrick worked for four years at Sailing World magazine; was a freelancer for a number of years, during whic ...more

Books by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution

More…

Trivia About Why Read Moby-Dick?

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Why Read Moby-Dick?

“Melville's example demonstrates the wisdom of waiting to read the classics. Coming to a great book on your own after having accumulated essential life experience can make all the difference.” — 18 likes

“To write timelessly about the here and now, a writer must approach the present indirectly. The story has to be about more than it at first seems. Shakespeare used the historical sources of his plays as a scaffolding on which to construct detailed portraits of his own age. The interstices between the secondhand historical plots and Shakespeare’s startlingly original insights into Elizabethan England are what allow his work to speak to us today. Reading Shakespeare, we know what it is like, in any age, to be alive. So it is with Moby-Dick, a novel about a whaling voyage to the Pacific that is also about America racing hell-bent toward the Civil War and so much more. Contained in the pages of Moby-Dick is nothing less than the genetic code of America: all the promises, problems, conflicts, and ideals that contributed to the outbreak of a revolution in 1775 as well as a civil war in 1861 and continue to drive this country’s ever-contentious march into the future. This means that whenever a new crisis grips this country, Moby-Dick becomes newly important. It is why subsequent generations have seen Ahab as Hitler during World War II or as a profit-crazed deep-drilling oil company in 2010 or as a power-crazed Middle Eastern dictator in 2011.” — 1 likes

More quotes…