Excellent. I loved Melville's Moby-Dick. Philbrick's book gives us the true story behind that great classic. Philbrick's informative, but very readable narrative-style puts the reader right into the story and the drama that surrounds these unfortunate events. The contrast of the captain and the first mate are astounding. A lot can be learned here about human behaviors in the face of horror and adversity. The whale at the heart is most intriguing.

Hang on. So the crew of the Essex (quite apart from their whole whale-killing society being an early contributor to majorly endangering the species as a whole):

-go on one of their epic whale-killing journeys;
-slaughter a bunch of whales;
-capture, abuse and slaughter a huge bunch of Galapagos tortoises;
-set fire to an entire Galapagos island for a fucking lark;
-get COMPLETELY UNFAIRLY, UNPROVOKEDLY AND WITH MALICIOUS INTENT attacked by a sperm whale (I mean, how very DARE that fucker?) so their ship sinks;
-proceed to aimlessly drift around the Pacific in three little boats for three months;
-manage through sheer ignorance and bad management to sail in the complete opposite direction from any number of islands that would have comfortably rescued them with no fuss at all;
-instead land on some barren rock that they eat bare of what few birds and crabs it has within about 3 days;
-then AGAIN proceed to sail in the completely wrong fucking direction because they're irrationally scared that more attainable islands might contain cannibals;
-then predictably run out of food and, instead of having to deal with completely hypothetical cannibals on some friendly island, turn into VERY FUCKING LITERAL CANNIBALS in their tiny boats;
-by not at all suspicious coincidence eat all the black guys first;
-the horribly incompetent captain ends up having his 17-year-old cousin shot and eaten (awkward homecoming, that: "Hey Nancy, so the good news is I'm alive!" -"Uhm, where's my teenage son that I entrusted specifically to your care?" -"Yeah well, you know how they say the dead live on inside us...?");
-then, once they've been whittled down by their own idiocy to one handful of pathetic morons, get rescued by sheer dumb luck;

...and we're thrilled and amazed at this brave feat of survival and human endurance HOW? Why? Really? Because I'm all Team Whale here.

The book was entertaining, though.

A gruesome tale of death and survival at sea told with suspense and drama to keep us aboard. Philbrick skillfully delivers the graphic details without overwhelming the reader. As in Mayflower he embellishes the story with fascinating insights and background. He profiles Nantucket’s boom and bust history. In the early 19th century Nantucket was a blackened and smelly place despoiled by the whale oil industry. This was the height of its whaling days when Nantucket whale ships were crisscrossing the Atlantic on their way to the Pacific where whales were still abundant. Most of the men were at sea for these two to three year-long whaling trips leaving behind an unusual female dominated society. We see the effects on courtship, marriage and everyday life as the wives attempt to raise their families unsure if their husbands will return in one piece if at all.

The practices of the 19th century whaling industry and the lives of the men who tried to make a living from it are starkly detailed. As Philbrick describes the voyage of the Essex he also sprinkles in interesting tidbits about the whales. But the whale that sinks the Essex acts unlike any other the men have encountered. The sailors looking on from their whaleboats are incredulous as a whale attacks and sinks their ship. This is where the real story begins. Thousands of miles from land the men of the Essex must come together, make a plan and make their way. It is not pretty. With graphic detail Philbrick describes the physical and psychological changes starving men undergo. We learn about judgement under pressure, when it’s best to take charge and when it’s best to listen and support others. For context Philbrick fills us in on other disasters where starvation drove men to the brink. To finish Philbrick tells us how the ordeal changed the survivors’ lives. A great book for the adventure lover and the history buff and for those who would like to see the whale win one.

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 firsthand.

Philbrick bridges the critical gap. What did the water look like when the 80 ton whale barreled toward the ship? What does it feel like to starve/thirst to death? What happens to your eyelids? What did Captain Pollard shout when his cousin's lot was drawn? Philbrick may not have been there in the whaleboats, but he knows so much about his topic, he may as well have been. (The notes and select bibliography themselves take up another 50-or-so pages, most of them primary sources.)

What's really impressive to me about all of the research Philbrick did, is how, through the overwhelming web of whaling and Nantucket and cannibalism that must have become his mind, he maintained a grip on what would interest his audience. Just as you begin to ask a question, he answers it. Just as you come to a realization ("wow, so the whales' social lives were structured a lot like the Nantucketers'") he articulates it -- of course, better than you had, and often utilizing the words "predator" and "prey". Masterful.

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 sea killing whales and rendering their flesh into valuable oil. Two years later, he was found in a whaleboat with one of his crew, drifting near South America, delirious and near death. He had lost his ship in a bizarre incident in which it was attacked by a whale. He had lost his crew during terrifying weeks at sea in small boats. He and the other survivors had fallen to cannibalism, eating their fellows as they died of starvation. Not only that, but one of the dead was his own nephew, whom he had sworn to protect! And not only that, but the rescuers found the two men gnawing desperately on the marrow-bones, which they refused to let go of, as if they were the most precious thing possible! It is hard to imagine a more vivid example of how the hazards of seafaring could drag a man down from the peaks of success. And that is why the history of sailing holds such a great fascination, because it presented such harsh challenges to the men who sailed, in a way that starkly tested the men's character.

Melville grasped how the roles of the men on a whaler serve as archetypes for qualities of leadership, courage and duty. It is the conflicts between Ahab, Starbuck, the harpooneers and and the crew, reflected in the greater conflict between duty and ontology, that give "Moby Dick" its power. In Philbrick's analysis, the fate of the "Essex" and its survivors were determined by the character and conflicts among captain Pollard, first mate Chase and a few of the crew. While the first mate was too self-sure, the captain was too diffident, and sought consensus with his subordinates when he should have issued orders based on his own opinion. Most critically, Pollard followed the mates' wishes in sailing the whaleboats against the wind towards South America, rather than with the wind towards Tahiti. They were afraid to find cannibals in Tahiti, and the captain thought they were wrong but didn't know enough facts to argue them down. The irony of their own eventual cannibalism is evident. And yet the headstrong first mate led the men better in his own little boat, and saved more of them, than did the captain. The counter-examples to the "Essex" are striking. The crew of another whaleship, sunk by a whale years later, sailed their little boats towards a heavy shipping route and were saved in two days. At another time a ship's crew, adrift in lifeboats, lost a member to starvation and decided not to eat him, but to cut up the body as bait. This way they caught enough sharks to feed the other survivors.

If the survival story is supremely harrowing, the working routine on a whaler was grueling enough, as the book deftly relates. Aside from the bad pay and the back-breaking labor, the sheer youth of the crew is shocking. The captain was 28, the first mate 23, most of the crew were teenagers, and one was only 14. The camaraderie of coming from the same hometown of Nantucket must have eased the harsh conditions for many of the crew. But here the survival story acquires a sinister ethnic overtone. All the ship's officers and about half of the men were Nantucketers. Of the ones who survived, almost all were Nantucketers. None of the African-American sailors survived. While the author discounts any deliberate factional killing, it is clear that group mentality and perhaps even racism influenced who survived and who didn't.

This book is a tale well-told, rich with many compelling insights on history, character and society. Well-deserving of its National Book Award.

Equal parts fascinating and sickening, the true history that inspired Moby Dick is a great book and worthy of its bestseller status.
I actually found the treatment of the whales - and the tortoises stored alive as food - to be harder to handle than the cannibalism, which probably says a lot about me. An absolutely fascinating look at how people survive the most extreme physical, mental and emotional conditions.

I was worried when I started this book. I almost didn't start this book. The reason I almost didn't read the book wasn't because it was too new for me to read, I mean, my word the author is still alive. I think so anyway. Whenever I find a book on my shelves that has been written anytime since I've been alive - 1961 - I'm amazed I own such a thing, but it does happen. Not every book in this house is a classic, or just plain old, but of the 900 or so that are in this house, only about 50 have been written since 1961, or since 1951 for that matter. But here I am holding In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick, bought for me by someone who saw the Penguin on the side of the book, figured I'd like it and brought it home.

But the thing that had me worried wasn't that, it was the words:

In his riveting and critically acclaimed bestseller, Nathaniel Philbrick returns an epic tale - the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby-Dick

That's enough, it was those words Moby-Dick that did it. I hated that book, as far as I can tell one of the only people who haven't loved good old Moby-Dick, but I didn't love it. And why didn't I like that good old whale book? Because while I suppose the story, you know the part where they are sailing around the ocean looking for whales, was interesting enough, I'm assuming it was interesting, my mind had nearly shut down from all the other things going on by then. The other things are the non-fictional descriptions of the whaling industry, we have various species of whales, there are a lot of them, I could name them now, but I don't want to, would you like to know the anatomy of the whale? I could tell you, I won't. I learned an awful lot about rope I never needed to know. The descriptions of whaling lines, whale paintings, and whale ships, stabbing whales, cutting up whales, and the blubber. I didn't think I'd ever get out of the blubber section. I just didn't care and I certainly didn't want to go through it all again. So now I'm holding a book that to me is compared to the encyclopedia of whale blubber and somehow I still start reading.

This was a really good book. It had to be a really good book, I kept reading and reading. A whale sunk their ship and I kept reading. Whales were getting scarce at the usual killing whale grounds so they have to go further out to sea to kill more whales and I kept reading. I still have to learn about whales, and whale ships, and whale ship captains, and all the other crewmen, and how you sail these ships, and still I kept reading. And it all really happened, when the captain and first mate, and most of the rest of the crew go out in the small ships in an effort to stick things that kill whales into them, it really happened. When a whale, perhaps because he was sick of the entire thing attacks the big ship and actually sinks it, it really happened. And when that leaves a crew of twenty or so, I can't remember how many, stuck in the ocean in the three smaller boats, it really happened. I wonder why they don't just stay on the big ship and shoot at the whales, it seems like it would be safer than being in little boats, but in this case it wasn't. And through it all I kept reading. These men spent months in these boats in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of nowhere. These men are starving, these men are dying of thirst, these men are just plain dying.

In these boats we have the captain and his men from Nantucket, they all stick together. Then the first mate's boat which has more of the Nantucket men, then the boat with the black sailors in them. The black sailors are the ones that die first, but they aren't the only ones who die. Watching these men die of starvation and dehydration is horrible. But they didn't all die, eight men eventually are saved, and how did they manage to stay alive for months after the food ran out?

”The men were not much more than skeletons themselves, and the story that would be passed from ship to ship in the months ahead was that they were ‘found sucking the bones of their dead mess mates, which they were loath to part with.’”

And I kept reading, that's why this book is getting five stars, anything that can remind me of Moby-Dick every page or so and yet I keep going has to get five stars. Happy reading.

One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. I can't find any fault, it's just perfect! The movie does not it any justice, mark my words.

In non-fiction works, the most important thing is how you write, how to combine your loads of information into an engaging narrative (it's like a jigsaw puzzle, actually) AND how to stop giving too much details. Philbrick did a marvelous job on these fronts. There are other first-hand accounts of the Essex tragedy, testimonies and so on, but he didn't stop there. He brought Nantucket to life. While Herman Melville spent 1/4 of Moby Dick talking about whale's blubber and other body parts, Philbrick managed to spread around the blubber all over the narratives and it just ... flows, grease and all.

Yes, there are gripping action scenes, not only involving the Essex (a second whale!), but also other ships. The Essex and its crew are not the only victims of whales. And the whale who wrecked the ship is not the only one of its kind doing that. And surely the Essex crews are not the only sailors experiencing hunger and other horrors in the sea. I like how Philbrick gave other people's experiences to give the reader an idea on both the similarity and uniqueness of the tragedy.

And what a tragedy it was. This book will make you (want to) cry with anguish. This book will make you pump your fist in the air and cheer for man's perseverance, discipline, pliability, and fellowship facing all odds. People made mistakes, officers obviously included. But, they were also heroes in their own rights. Please don't use the Hollywood version for your reference - it's crap and cheap drama. The real deal is even more dramatic and crushing. I am running out of words on how to praise this book, so I'll just say thank you for Nathaniel Philbrick for the experience, and making me bestow more respect to the sea. That boundless, mysterious, utterly scary, beautiful sea.

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

I couldn't put this book down; it is the true story that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick. A whaling ship from Nantucket was deliberately attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. Never before had such a thing happened. And that's just the beginning of the story. The sailors' incredible struggle for survival lasted for three months.

Equally fascinating was the strange, rich society that lived in the whaling town of Nantucket. Most of the men would go to sea for a couple of years, and return for a few months before sailing again. The women stayed at home and managed the town. The parallel with the society of sperm whales is uncanny.

Espectacular e interesantísima crónica, pues no decae en ningún momento, sobre el viaje y naufragio del ballenero Essex. Ya en su mismo prefacio y primeros capítulos nos resulta de sumo interés lo que nos cuenta Philbrick sobre el puerto ballenero por excelencia que era Nantucket en la 1era mitad del siglo XIX, sus gentes, como se impuso allá el cuaquerismo sobre el resto de religiones, y las penalidades que sufren no solo las tripulaciones de los balleneros, que parten lejos de su tierra a un destino incierto para sustentar el único negocio próspero de la citada isla, sino también sus familias, esposas e hijos que no verán en 2-3 años a sus esposos y padres en el mejor de los casos, y en el peor no llegarán jamás a verlos de vuelta.

Aún teniéndome ganada de inicio, Philbrick no deja que pierda interés durante la larga travesía del "Essex" nada más enrolarse en él los últimos "manos verdes" junto a los expertos marineros criados en Nantucket o en Cape Cod. Las Azores, las islas de Cabo Verde, Antacames, las Galápagos... Hasta que ocurre la tragedia estando en pleno corazón del inmenso océano Pacífico: un enorme cachalote macho de unos 26 metros embiste dos veces el viejo ballenero "Essex", hundiéndolo en las profundidades del vasto océano. Con él se van parte de las esperanzas de la tripulación. La odisea que tienen que hacer para sobrevivir está llena de penurias. Incluso dando con una isla, la de Henderson (aunque ellos equivocadamente creen es la de Ducie), la divina providencia es un espejismo pues no es rica en recursos y solo tres se decidirán quedar en ella. Los otros verán como la deshidratación y el hambre minan sus fuerzas, y verán morir a compañeros, para que luego éstos sirvan de sustento de los vivos. Si al inicio de su odisea evitaron las Marquesas y las islas Sociedad por relatos de canibalismo, y equivocadamente marcharon hacia América del Sur, el destino, trágico e irónico, les deparaba tener que comerse unos a otros.

De los 20 solo 8 sobrevivieron. Pasarían a la historia no por la proeza en sí que realizaron, sino por la ballena blanca que los condenó y la inspiración de un escritor de gran instinto que dotaba siempre a sus historias de un buen estudio psicológico de personajes. Así fue como la historia verídica del naufragio del "Essex" dio lugar en la ficción a la obra maestra de Melville, "Moby Dick". Por culpa de Philbrick solo pienso en leer más sobre cetáceos y caerán pronto la ya citada y otro de no ficción de Philip Hoare, "Leviatán o la Ballena". Altamente adictiva. Avisados estáis. Puntuación máxima para Philbrick.

Best piece of non-fiction I’ve read in years – I know it’s a cliché but you can’t make this stuff up! In 1819, a whaling ship is rammed by a sperm whale, not once but twice and the surviving crew drifts for 90 days in three tiny boats, Captain Bligh’s 48 day ordeal pales in comparison. They eventually turned to cannibalism which call me weird I didn’t have a problem with. A card carrying organ donor I figure I’m dead anyway - eat me. When it came down to drawing lots though, that pushed my buttons.
Well researched but never dry – a nail biter that reads like fiction. Delivered what I was expecting, a tragic tale that “happens to be one of the greatest true stories ever told” and so much more. The background on Nantucket well done, exploring the religious influence of Quakerism, how with the men gone for years at a time it was virtually run by women. Philbrick’s handling of the moral & ethical dilemmas these men struggled with was beautiful, the inclusion of the Melville / Captain George Pollard connection icing on the cake.
Cons: Maybe the characterizations could have been stronger, I wasn’t all that sympathetic to their plight but that’s probably not fair, I was routing for the whales. I did feel bad for them when they were later set upon by killer whales though, I mean enough already – being attacked by a 80 ft. sperm whale wasn’t enough? This city girl worked for a couple of summers on a 35 foot Gillnetter. Trust me, being in a small boat out in the middle of the Pacific surrounded by a pod of killer whales (they like salmon too) is intimidating friggin terrifying!
Warning: Animal lovers will find the description of whale slaughter harsh - their butchering aptly described “At night the deck of the Essex looked like something out of Dante's Inferno” As is the inhumane treatment of the giant tortoises they harvested from the Galapagos Islands – heart breaking.
The Movie: Ron Howard’s has begun film production – comes out in 2014

I wrote a paper on Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” for my senior year AP English class and received an “A+” for it... WITHOUT HAVING READ THE DAMNED BOOK! Not bragging (okay, maybe a little...), but it’s a testament to two things: 1) the great in-depth class discussions about the book in Mr. Milheim’s class from which I took copious notes and 2) my talent for bullshit. I could write a paper on any topic, not knowing anything about said topic, and make it sound great, by simply bullshitting my way through it. This is pretty much how I made it through college... But that’s beside the point.

The point is: I have never actually read “Moby Dick”, and I kind of feel guilty about that. It is, after all, one of those American Literature “classics” that many learned people revere, talk about, and quote from constantly. I consider myself a pretty well-read person, but never having read “Moby Dick” is, in my opinion, a glaring shortcoming on my part.

I know, I probably shouldn’t feel that guilty. Lots of people haven’t read it either. Probably for the same reasons I could cite for not finishing it: Melville’s tendency to interrupt the narrative with chapters describing whale physiognomy, types of whaling vessels, the history of the whaling industry, etc.; the slow build of character introductions and scene-setting; the complete inability to find any relevance to my own life.

I mean, seriously, what do 19th-century Nantucket whalers on a voyage to hunt down an elusive whale have anything to do with me?

The question is meant to be rhetorical, although the answer is a definite “nothing”.

Still, if I had read Nathaniel Philbrick’s “In the Heart of the Sea” before attempting “Moby Dick”, I may have had a better appreciation for Melville’s classic, and I may have actually finished it.

Here’s why, in reasons listed in importance from least to most:

1) I probably could have skipped over some of the chapters in Melville’s book in which he writes about the different types of whales in the sea, the brief history of the whaling industry, and the different types of boats. Philbrick does a fantastic job of incorporating all of that in this book, and he has the benefit of writing his book with a 21st-century knowledge. Philbrick’s information is, at the very least, up-to-date. Not that I probably would skip those parts, but having a better understanding of what Melville was talking about may have helped me slog through some of the more boring long-winded chapters to the heart of the novel.

2) Philbrick helps answer the question, “Why should I be interested in a book about whalers from Nantucket?” The simple answer is that the whaling industry was, in its heyday, a major player in the global economy and of major importance for the economy of the fairly-new United States of America. Nantucket, Massachusetts---being at the center of this lucrative whaling industry---was one of the most important cities in the United States at the time. Knowing how important whaling was to our nation’s financial success in its early years may have gone a long way in enticing me to read further in Melville’s book.

3) Knowing that “Moby Dick” was based on an actual incident, and a terrifying and sad one at that, would have given me that spark of interest to read further. I’m sure it was mentioned at some point during Mr. Milheim’s class discussions that Melville based his novel on the very real story of the whaleship Essex, which, in November 1820, was struck not once but twice by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific. It may have been mentioned, but it didn’t fire my imagination at the time. Perhaps it was because I didn’t know the full story, which Philbrick so wonderfully elucidates in grand detail. If I had known that the motivation behind “Moby Dick” was a true story that makes “Jaws” seem tame and that involves cannibalism on the high seas, I would have devoured that novel.

The weirdness and the creepiness of the Essex tragedy probably trumps its historical significance, but Philbrick writes the story as if it is still vitally important. In a sense, it still is, especially knowing what we now know about the environment, how ecosystems thrive, how we are decimating animal species into extinction horrifically, especially whales, and how intricately the global economy is intertwined with environmental issues.

Clearly, Philbrick is conscious of all that, but if that was his sole intent, it would be a whole lot of preaching to the choir for most readers.

I think Philbrick just knows a damn good story when he hears one, and the Essex tragedy is still a damn good story.

So good, in fact, that it has encouraged me to finally give “Moby Dick” the chance it finally deserves.