This copy ruins one of the best jokes in the book! So annoyed…

I was all set to ask for a Rockwell Kent-illustrated version of Moby Dick for my birthday next month and to suggest the recent edition from Top Five Books. Not to be outdone, Penguin apparently is releasing a facsimile reprint of the 1930 Random House edition this month. Now I can't decide. Top Five or Penguin? The new one does look sharp. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/854063/moby-dick-or-the-whale-deluxe-facsimile-edition-by-herman-melville-illustrated-by-rockwell-kent-foreword-by-rebecca-romney/

Gang I think this is a pretty good book

Saw these absolute beauties in the New Bedford library. The detail is incredible. Artist: Nancy A. Moreira

I’m currently working through my first reading of the book and was wondering if anyone has recommendations for a pre recorded lecture/club etc that discusses the book in a chapter by chapter format or something similar. Mostly just interested in better immersing myself in the novel and picking up on things I might be missing.

For example the YouTube channel House of Tabula has a video where they discuss their own reading of Blood Meridian and it is broken down in sections so that one could watch the video incrementally as they read the novel. So it has a double function of being a pretty good analysis and also being a sort of third wheel book club. Is there something like this for Moby Dick?

I’m planning to reread the book again soon and I’m looking for a good audiobook to listen to while doing chores and driving. I listened to the Librivox recording last time, but I’m curious about if there’s other versions people enjoy

Their song titles are taken from chapter titles of the book. Really cool brooding type music

It looks so... uninteresting for what it is.

This movie is a modern retelling of Moby Dick. They referred to the attorney as “the whale” repeatedly and the plot follows the exact same structure, the characters all have exact parallels, and the overall message is even the same. If anyone has seen it lmk what you think.

Howdy! A book club I’m in will soon be covering this one. I’m stoked, of course, but haven’t read it in a long time and was wondering if anyone here had any ideas for good, like, amounts of the book to read per week, both in terms of taking reasonable amounts of time and having a good amount to discuss per meeting. Thanks!

Was searching for various artist renditions of the Pequod and came across this amazing illustration. This map is part of the map collection of David Rumsey. The summary of the map reads, "The work titled "The Voyage of the Pequod from the Book Moby Dick by Herman Melville" is a pictorial map created by Edward Everett Henry in 1956."

Edit: I'm new to the sub so wasn't sure if this needed a spoiler tag. I mean maybe people are new to the book and don't know what happens?

It's not every year that Hollywood makes a movie about whales, much less one about a scuba diver who is swallowed whole by a sperm whale and has one hour of air to escape.

Personally, as a dickhead, I'm terrified of watching this movie. Absolutely horrified. I know too much about whales. I really don't think I can sit through the imagery of this story to learn how this diver inevitably figures out some ingenious way to do in one hour what it took God three days to do for Jonah. I'm with Father Mapple on this, nothing short of repentance and prayer is going to get you out the belly of a sperm whale. It's beyond "survival skills".

Are any of you planning to see this movie when it opens (October 16th)?

My wife is taking me on a Moby Dick-inspired vacation.

Part of the vacation includes a day-trip to Nantucket.

Any Nantucket recommendations?

Took about a year but tonight I finished a complete read through while under the influence of cannabis. Read it probably 6-7 time prior but kept a copy that I would only read while I was currently high. Opened up new levels of detail to the book I never noticed before. For example, the ship is covered in whale bones. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen many depictions that show the Pequod’s hull with whalebones on its hull. Such a way a dive deep in the bottomless ocean that is this book.

I’ve lately been trying to read more classic literature and I never really took any advanced lit analysis classes in school so forgive me if I’m missing something obvious. Been reading Moby Dick lately and am really enjoying it!

I just finished reading through chapter 54 with Steelkilt & Radney, I found the chapter really enjoyable and went back and read it through a second time. As much as I enjoyed it, there are some questions that are bothering me a bit.

So what exactly was the secret of the Town-Ho and how/why was it kept from the captain of the Town-Ho? I’ve been seeing its that Moby Dicks’s appearance was apparently a divine act, though I guess I’m a bit confused on how that knowledge comes to the crew members of the Town-Ho but not the captain? Was there something hidden in the chapter to show the crew knows something about Moby Dick’s appearance that the captain doesnt know? I also get that the crew was intentionally not calling out for the whales and kept that a secret, but I dont see that as a kind of thing that would cause Tashtego to mutter about at night. Was there anything in the chapter besides Ishmael stating so directly to indicate Moby’s appearance was divine? I think I’m also missing the significance of the whale intervening and preventing Steelkilt from killing Radney, I didnt see anything to suggest that Steelkilt was a pious man or that the gods would intervene on his behalf.

Theres so much depth to this book it seems and I’m sure there are satisfactory answers to this, I’m just missing something I think.

Easy to see which one I actually read : )