lunabri's review against another edition
emotional
informative
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty
miguelb's review against another edition
4.0
There is now way someone would guess that the prose in the book would be so compelling and the narrative so fascinating. I couldn't put it down.
coreyk's review against another edition
DNF. Marking it as read, since I got through more than half but I lost interest.
snowbenton's review against another edition
Gave up at 29%. This was just a love letter to Moby Dick. It wasn't interesting and it barely talked about whales. It felt like a journal, full of personal experiences and insipid thoughts.
jenn_geeks_out's review against another edition
Didn't finish. I got this as a kindle preview, I think. I've had a thing for whales since I had to do a report on animals in the third grade and chose a humpback whale as my subject. So this seemed like a good fit.
I wasn't expecting it to be so much literary criticism on Moby Dick. That's not a bad thing; just not what I want to read. I've been trying to stick with it, but it's been languishing and I've been studiously avoiding my kindle because I feel guilt getting something new without finishing my previous titles (an affliction that I only suffer from in ebook format; I have no such problem with acquiring new physical books without reading all of my other books). It's time to give it up. I'm not going to finish it, and I'd rather be reading something else anyway.
I wasn't expecting it to be so much literary criticism on Moby Dick. That's not a bad thing; just not what I want to read. I've been trying to stick with it, but it's been languishing and I've been studiously avoiding my kindle because I feel guilt getting something new without finishing my previous titles (an affliction that I only suffer from in ebook format; I have no such problem with acquiring new physical books without reading all of my other books). It's time to give it up. I'm not going to finish it, and I'd rather be reading something else anyway.
valjeanval's review against another edition
3.0
This book was a bit misleading. I expected to read about whales in their variety and complext and in fact got a book far more about whaling and 80% about sperm whales. It's very informative, and if you're a Moby Dick fan, the first half pretty much follows Melville's life as it relates to whales. It's hard to read about the slaughter, the reasons for the slaughter, and the gruesome details of the whaling industry. The later chapters get more into modern relationships with whales including whale watching and the last vestiges of people still clinging to the whale products industry (amberghris is gross, y'all). While I learned a lot, it's hard to say I enjoyed the book. It was graphic, realistically pessimistic, and just not what I wanted from the subtitle "In search of giants of the sea." If you are looking to read a natural history of whales, not for you. If you are looking to read a history of human interaction with whales/literary examples of whales, then this is definitely a book you want.
rhymeswithjulia's review against another edition
3.0
This book was more of a history of the industry of whaling, and tended to be very British/American centric. It also spent a large portion of the book discussing Moby Dick, and I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I had read that first. That being said, there were lots of interesting facts about whales and although quite long I did enjoy it!