Roving Book Club
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” ― Neil Gaiman
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Read by Tiffany: Only half of the novel's 600-odd pages cover the story of Ahab, Ishmael, Queequeg and the crew of the Pequod. The other half are filled with Melville's notes and musings on the physiology (inside and out) of whales, the behaviour of whales, legends and historical evolution of whales, and detailed descriptions of the activity of whaling. Melville is obviously very consciously writing a 'classic' and shoehorns in an enormous breadth of vocabulary (my personal favourite - "circumambulate"). The odd Shakepearean sections jar a little, but you just have to go with it ..Worth reading once for the rich, diverse and vividly evocative language.