« May, 2005 »
In The Heart of the Sea - The Tragedy of the Waleship Essex 
by Nathaniel Philbrick (2001)
read: 8 May 2005
rating: [+]
category: non-fiction
After being rammed by an 85 foot sperm whale in the Pacific, the crew of the Essex must abandoned ship and set out in three rickety whaling boats for the South American coast, which happens to be about 2000 miles away. Along the way most of them die as the survivors are pushed to the absolute limits of the both physical and psychological survival. This is a brilliant book. Author Nathaniel Philbrick does an amazing job enveloping the reader in the sights, sounds, and smells that were the 19th century whaling industry. This is also a true story, put together from the memoirs of two of the survivors, and this real life maritime disaster was the inspiration for Moby Dick.
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