Moby Dick Mania

If you are not taken with our friend Moby, you may be less than enamored with my post, because everything I read this week is Moby Dick-ish. It's not that I have fallen in love with Moby Dick; I'm continuing to slog through everything Moby Dick because so many people have told me how much they adore this story. I'm like the girl who has agreed to marry the boy her parents have picked out for her; she likes the boy fine and dandy, but he seems at first look to be nothing special, and she is still hopeful that she will grow to love him, in time.

I read a ridiculous nine Moby Dick books this week: five books for Dewey's 24-Hour Reverse Readathon, and an additional four later this week. The links will take you to my reviews of each:

Moby Dick: 10 Minute Classics retold by Philip Edwards and illustrated by Adam Horsepool

I read Moby Dick: 10 Minute Classics, retold by Philip Edwards and illustrated by Adam Horsepool. It's a picture book version of Moby Dick, to be sure ...more

Moby Dick (Classics Illustrated, No. 5) Comics - 1943 by Herman Melville

I could now, in all honesty, say that I have read Moby Dick. Well, the comic book version, published at a time a comic book sold for fifteen cents...more

The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick by Jil Fine

Yes, it's a book for elementary age children, but The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick was an excellent introduction for me into the event ...more

Moby Dick based on the novel by Herman Melville, retold by Lew Sayre Schwartz, illustrated by Dick Giordano

The City of New Bedford, long considered the Whaling Capital of the World, set out in 2001 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Mob...more

Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

In this little book, written like a master's thesis from a besotted fan, Nathaniel Philbrick shares all his favorite lines and favorite themes and fav...more

The Whale: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard

Mark Beauregard relies upon careful research and a bit of imagination to tell the story of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, two writers who me ...more

Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson

Nick Pyenson is the creator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian, and this book is the story of everything scientists have learned about whales ...more

In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

It's easy to see how reading Moby Dick led me to In the Heart of the Sea; the story of the sinking of the Essex helped inspire Melville to write his...more

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare

I was expecting The Whale to be just that, a book about whales. And it is, but it is so much more. The Whale is a meditation on whales, on Moby Dick,...more 

I'm continuing to read Moby Dick, of course. I'm at 48% on my Kindle, and I'm trying to read at least two or three small chapters a day. I would be very happy if I can finish Moby Dick by the end of the month. No, I haven't fallen in love with Moby, but I am having a lot of fun reading the book. If you are interested in joining in with Bronwyn's Moby Dick Readalong, it's not too late. Sign onboard here. 

I also posted about Moby Dick covers and Moby Dick vocabulary this week:

A Sea of Moby Dicks---Who Knew There Were So Many Covers???

Moby Dick: Great Words to Note and Save and Use

I plan to continue my Moby Dick adventure this month with more posts now and then. I've simultaneously listened to the podcast Whale, Whale, Whale while reading along in Power Moby Dick, an annotated online version of the text. But Whale, Whale, Whale ended abruptly last February with Chapter 32, and now I'm forced to resort to listening to Moby Dick Big Read, a read aloud of the text which I've found to be highly variable in its quality, while reading along in Power Moby Dick. 

I sail on.

If you have read this far, you may be wondering if I've gone over the edge like Ahab, and the answer is, yes, but I hope to recover by switching to a small 1001 Children's Book celebration of Women in Translation Month. August is Women in Translation Month, an event hosted by Bibliobio. The event is designed to encourage more books by women to be translated into English and other languages. I have decided to buy and read three of my 1001 Children's Books that are written by women and that have been translated into English: Aldabra: The Tortoise Who Loved Shakespeare by Italian author Silvana Gandolfi, A Letter to the King by Dutch author Tonte Dragt, and The Big Sister by Swedish author Six Widerberg.  I have a selfish reason for wanting to encourage more English translations of works by women: many of the 1001 Children's Books have not been translated into English. You can find out more about this event by visiting Bibliobio.

The scorching heat of August here along the Texas Gulf Coast

I haven't really done much this week other than read. The temperatures have pushed up into the high 90s each day, and it doesn't cool down much at night, so I've spent a lot of time in the air conditioning. Living where I do, along the Texas Gulf Coast, we waver between wanting the slightly cooler weather we love brought on by lows which also allow hurricanes to move in or putting up with the heat brought by high pressure areas which tends to keep the hurricanes away. We did celebrate my daughter-in-law's birthday and I walked and swam and did yoga and took a little class on photography and planned our upcoming trip to Utah and did other things to distract myself while I await the arrival of some cooler weather that should arrive by Halloween. 

How was your week?

Did you read any good books? Please share them with us.

What other bookish things did you do? What else is going on in your life?

I'd love to have you to link up here and/or at the Sunday Salon page on Facebook each weekend (Saturday-Sunday-Monday) and let us know what you have been doing. I hope you will visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. If you have other blogging friends, it would be wonderful if you'd tell others about our salon and encourage them to join us.

Other places where you may like to link up are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

Moby Dick: Great Words to Note and Save and Use

Part of the pleasure of reading classics as an adult is the joy of reading and noting words used in the book which could and should be added to one's vocabulary.

I'm reading Moby Dick. I've run across lots of words I plan to save and use in the future. These are words, by and large, that I learned in school, but which I rarely or never use in conversation; I want to use these in conversation. For now, I'm skipping all the odd words, the whaling words, but I may come back to that later. Here's my list.

Portentous (pg. 10): ominous

Catarrh (pg. 14): a buildup of mucous in the nose or throat

Obstreperously (pg. 14): noisily, rambunctiously

Expostulations (pg. 27): expressions of strong disapproval

Indecorous (pg. 28): in bad taste, unrestrained

Ablutions (pg. 28): washings

Skylarking (pg. 29): fooling around

Imputable (pg. 32): attributable

Flouts at (pg. 39): openly disregards

Inexorable (pg. 48): unstoppable

Sagacity (pg. 67): wisdom

Blandishments (pg. 84): flattering or pleasing statements

Ineffable (pg. 93): too great to be described in words

Succor (pg. 105): help

Puissant (pg. 107): powerful

Vicissitude (pg. 112): a change of circumstance or fortune

Engendering (pg. 113): giving rise to

Craven (pg. 115): cowardly

Unvitiated (pg. 117): unspoiled, unmixed

Peremptory (pg. 119): bossy, imperious

Deprecating (pg. 124): express disapproval of

Gregarious (pg. 135): sociable

Prodigious (pg. 139): great in extent, size, or degree

Expatiate (pg. 151): write about at length

Turbid (pg. 165): cloudy, opaque

Sultry (pg. 212): hot and humid

Suffusingly (pg. 221): by spreading out

Indolently (pg. 249): lazily

Effulgent (pg. 272): brightly shining

Bilious (pg. 314): nauseating

Gingerly (pg. 321): cautious, careful

Inveterate (pg. 366): habitual, of longstanding

Engendered (pg. 372): created

Inculcating (pg. 391): instructing others through repetition

Timorous (pg. 409): timid

Luridly (pg. 410): shockingly

Recondite (pg. 416): obscure, not easy to understand 

Plethoric (pg. 420): overabundant, over-giving

Unvitiated (pg. 423): unreduced, undebased

Morass (pg. 427): an area of low-lying ground

Elucidated (pg. 443): clarified

Attenuated (pg. 451): reduced or made thin

Stolidity (pg. 463): apathy, lack of emotion

Cogent (pg. 466): convincing

Gambol (pg. 533): frolic

Pertinacious (pg. 546): stubborn, persistent


Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is in the public domain. 
Page numbers shown are from the first American edition, published in 1851.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words 

that we’ve encountered in our reading. 

If you want to play along, grab the button, 

write a post and come back and add your link to Mr. Linky at Bermuda Onion!

A Sea of Moby Dicks---Who Knew There Were So Many Covers???

Which one do you think is best? 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

Au Revoir, Paris in July; Diversity; and August Book Events

Diversity was the theme of my reading this week. Citizen: An American Lyric is a book of flash nonfiction and poetry that takes on the American black experience. Each Tiny Spark is a middle-grade children's book that tells the struggles and joys of a young Hispanic girl with ADHD. And The Heart's Invisible Furies is the story of the life of a gay man in Ireland from his birth in the 1940s to the present day.

Paris in July is over, sadly. Happily, though, I wrote more posts (15) last month for Paris in July than I ever have:

Weekly Wrap-Up: The Launch of Paris in July 2019

Favorite French Stories from Childhood

Paris in July: I Forgot to Tell You That I Went to Paris Last Month

Weekly Wrap-Up: Moonlight Over Paris, Love à la Mode, and Rosetta Stone: Français

Wonderful French Book Characters

Paris in July: Paris-ish Things in My Home

Weekly Wrap-Up: Foodie France (Don't Miss These Books!)

I Can't Resist Buying Books With French Things on the Cover

Sablés au Citron: French Lemon Shortbread from Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan

Weekly Wrap-up: French Shortbread, Fossil Hunting, and a Whole Slew of  Books

My Favorite Settings in Paris

Clafoutis aux Pêche (Peach Clafoutis) from Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan

Weekly Wrap-Up: French Salons, Clafoutis aux Pêche, and Twenty-One Books Read and Reviewed

Paris + Food = A Love Story

Au Revoir, Paris

I watched two movies set in Paris: Midnight in Paris and Paris: Je T'aime.

I practiced my French with Rosetta Stone.

I read seven books that were by French authors and/or were set in France:

Maigret by Georges Simenon

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan

Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Thief

Moonlight Over Paris

Love a la Mode

It was a great Paris in July.

August is Women in Translation Month, an event hosted by Bibliobio. The event is designed to encourage more books by women to be translated into English and other languages. I have decided to buy and read three of my 1001 Children's Books that are written by women and that have been translated into English: Aldabra: The Tortoise Who Loved Shakespeare by Italian author Silvana Gandolfi, A Letter to the King by Tonte Dragt, and The Big Sister by Swedish author Six Widerberg.  I have a selfish reason for wanting to encourage more English translations of works by women: many of the 1001 Children's Books have not been translated into English. You can find out more about this event by visiting Bibliobio.

Dewey's 24-Hour Reverse Readathon is August 2nd through August 3rd. It starts at 8 pm EST so that people in other parts of the world can start the readathon at a decent time. I am reading.

Brona's Books is sponsoring the Moby Dick Readalong in August. I am also joining this one.

I spent a long time last Sunday trying to update my list of Blogs I Often Visit. I couldn't believe how many of my favorite blogs were not on the list. I hope I have added you. Would you please make sure you are there? If you are not, would you please let me know?

How was your week?

Did you read any good books? Please share them with us.

What other bookish things did you do? What else is going on in your life?

I'd love to have you to link up here and/or at the Sunday Salon page on Facebook each weekend (Saturday-Sunday-Monday) and let us know what you have been doing. I hope you will visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. If you have other blogging friends, it would be wonderful if you'd tell others about our salon and encourage them to join us.

Other places where you may like to link up are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

Dewey's 24 Hour Reverse Readathon, with a Moby Dick Theme

PRE-READATHON PREP

I decide to spend Dewey's 24-Hour Reverse Readathon reading Moby Dick and Moby Dick-related books. The Reverse Readathon starts Friday, August 2nd at 8 pm EST and runs through August 3rd at 8 pm EST.

In case you missed it, Brona's Books is holding a Moby Dick Readalong, beginning this month. Here are some useful resources she oh-so-kindly bookmarks for us:

Power-Moby, the Online Annotation

Moby Dick Podcast
Moby Dick Big Read

I find summaries of each chapter:

Shmoop Summaries of Moby Dick Chapters
How to Read Moby Dick: A Guide for First-Timers

I check out books from my public library that I also plan to read. I find a children's version of Moby Dick, a comic book of Moby Dick, and a graphic novel of Moby Dick. In addition, I have the true story of Moby Dick, Moby-Dick in Pictures (with a drawing for every page), and Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby-Dick?

I find Abbott and Costello's Moby Dick (which really doesn't have much to do with Moby Dick at all) from February 13, 1947. Of course I had to start with Abbott and Costello:

"Now Moby Dick was swimming along and one day he saw a swordfish fighting with a mackerel. The swordfish stabbed the mackerel. Then he stabbed him again. And he stabbed him again. And again." 

"Poor little mackerel."

"Then he stabbed him again."

"That poor little mackerel must have been full of holes."

"Yep. He was a holy mackerel."

"Now Moby Dick didn't feel so good so he went to see the doctor fish."

"Doctor fish?"

"Yeah, he was a famous sturgeon."

"What?"

"He was, too. He was a great fish-sician."

I find three movie versions of Moby Dick on Amazon Prime. I wonder which one is the best.

I make a music playlist on Amazon Prime: Moby Dick Music.

And you just can't have any sort of a readathon without snacks, right?

I think I'm set. Do you have any other resources for me? Ideas? Suggestions?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1

I am simultaneously listening to the podcasts and reading along in Power Moby Dick for Chapters 1-10. The readathon hasn't even started and I'm already 14% through the book.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 2

Here's a lovely poem to kick off our Moby Dick: Things to Do in the Belly of a Whale by Dan Albergotti, read aloud starting at 2:50 by Garrison Keillor.

Bryan Waterman has lots of fascinating observations in his Top 5 Bits of Advice for First-Time Readers of Moby Dick.

This morning I learn that Herman Melville apparently wrote all of Moby Dick before meeting Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was Hawthorne who encouraged Melville to read broadly, and Melville did. The result of that wide reading was a complete revision of Moby Dick. Fascinating. Writer Austin Kleon concludes, "I believe that the first step towards becoming a writer is becoming a reader, but the next step is becoming a reader with a pencil." 


It's all out there, folks. Someone has apparently copied Melville's library, books filled with his scribbled marginalia. Take a look at that here.

I read along in Power Moby Dick while listening to the podcasts for Chapters 11-16.

HOUR 1-2

1)What fine part of the world are you reading from today? And what time is it where you are?

It's 7 pm, and I'm in Alvin, Texas, along the Gulf Coast.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

The comic book version of Moby Dick. I think I'll read that first.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? 

The Caribbean coconut gelato.

4) Do you have a #reversereadathon plan of attack?

All things Moby Dick.

5) Are you doing the readathon solo or with others?

Solo AND with others. Oddly.

HOUR 3

Moby Dick (Classics Illustrated, No. 5) Comics – Color, 1943 by Herman Melville

I can now, in all honesty, say that I have read Moby Dick. Well, the comic book version, published at a time a comic book sold for fifteen cents, 1943. Comic book classics plus Cliff Notes is all that got my generation through college English, I think. All in all, not bad.  Forty-eight color pages (reduced from sixty-four, to conserve paper during the war). I especially love seeing Ahab's wildly manic face. 

HOUR 4-11

Sleeping.

HOUR 12

I'm back, listening to my Whale, Whale, Whale podcast while reading the online Power Moby Dick and browsing through the chapter summaries at Shmoop.

HOUR 13

Listening to all of these podcasts has apparently twisted my brain toward the trivial, but I suddenly feel curious to explore the meaning behind the Pepperidge Farm Double Chocolate Nantucket cookies ("If you're going to have a cookie, have a cookie.") Why Nantucket? I wonder. I wasn't able to find out why, but I do find out that Taste of Home ranked the Nantucket #6 of fifteen Pepperidge Farm cookies its taste-testers tried. I also learn that Pepperidge Farm founder Margaret Rudkin began the tradition of naming cookies after cities after a Queen Mary voyage through Europe, and Pepperidge Farm has continued the tradition through their American collection. I like how the ad copy for the Nantucket says, "It's the kind of cookie that's more than a treat, it's an experience!" I'll take that.

HOUR 14

Continuing on. As I am reading along in Power Moby-Dick, I notice the ad on the side panel is for Mack Weldon men's underwear. Mack Weldon, I learn, sells a 3-pack of Nautical Jersey Boxer Briefs for $72. Mack Weldon does not appear to sell women's underwear.

HOUR 15

I begin three lists of vocabulary words from Moby Dick. One, of course, is a list of sailing words and whaling words. One is a list of great vocabulary words I'd like to start using. And one is a list of words that are not in general usage nowadays, but should be.

I finish Chapter 27.

HOUR 16-18

Behance has lovely illustrations of all the Moby Dick characters. Can you guess who this is?

Perfect to glance at this illustration, as I read through Chapters 28 and 29 and the captain at last makes his entrance. From the podcast: "It feels like as soon as the ship is out of the port, this book kicks into twelfth gear."

A helpful character chart.

HOUR 19

I finish all the Whale, Whale, Whale podcasts (they go up to Chapter 32), and forge on, reading Power Moby-Dick through Chapter 35, 31% on my Kindle.

Moby Dick: 10 Minute Classics retold by Philip Edwards and illustrated by Adam Horsepool

Now I read Moby Dick: 10 Minute Classics, retold by Philip Edwards and illustrated by Adam Horsepool. It's a picture book version of Moby Dick, to be sure, much condensed, thirty-two pages versus the complete 655, but it's a nice abridgment, with all the key happenings, and enlivened by the clever caricatures drawn by the illustrator. 

HOUR 20

The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick by Jil Fine

Yes, it's a book for elementary age children, but The Whaleship Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick was an excellent introduction for me into the events that inspired Herman Melville to write his masterpiece. The Essex left Nantucket and traveled around Cape Horn and up around the Pacific Coast of South America when the ship attempted to harpoon a whale in late November. The angry whale retaliated by striking the 238 ton whaling ship twice, causing the ship to sink. The crew abandoned the ship, and took to the three whaling boats. Of the twenty crewmen, only eight were rescued, and the rescues did not take place until February, March, and for the last three, April. It's a devastating story, and, now that I've read a condensed version, I want to read more. I'm off to reserve Nathaniel Philbrook's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex to read soon.

HOUR 21

Moby Dick based on the novel by Herman Melville, retold by Lew Sayre Schwartz, illustrated by Dick Giordano

The City of New Bedford, long considered the Whaling Capital of the World, set out in 2001 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Moby Dick with an informative book for students. This is that book. It has three main parts: a biography of Herman Melville, a nonfiction section about whales and whaling, and a graphic novel of Moby Dick for children. It's an ideal introduction to Moby Dick for young people. And the occasional elderly librarian.

HOUR 22

Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

In this little book, written like a master's thesis from a besotted fan, Nathaniel Philbrick shares all his favorite lines and favorite themes and favorite issues from his beloved book, Moby Dick. Philbrick shows the contemporariness of Moby Dick through the issues Melville interweaves into his story as well as the timelessness of Moby Dick through the themes Melville touches upon. It's a love poem to Moby Dick, and I found myself reading the book while simultaneously marking passages in my Kindle version of Moby Dick to reflect upon later.

HOURS 23-24

Serendipitously, I have just enough time to finish off the readathon with a movie of Moby Dick, choosing the John Huston-Gregory Peck-Orson Wells-Richard Basehart version. Perfect ending to a lovely readathon.