"Call me Ishmael." Is the opening sentence to the magnificent tome, Moby-Dick. Written by Herman Melville, and published in 1851, it is a modern epic. The book follows the adventures of Ishmael, a wandering sailor, and his voyage on the whaler Pequod. The book establishes early on as a character study of most of the crew and their own trials with this particular voyage. Though through this novel the tone changes from a dark comedy to intense look of the "fishing" business with copious details of whale species. Melville later turns the plot from the the aforementioned to Ahab's motivation and later spiral to madness. As this is a book that most of us were supposed to read (and probably didn't) and now the book is holding portions of a DVD shelving unit, it is worth picking up for the 600 page novel. It might not be a fast paced page turner, though the adventure of a life time that these men face is worth the time. With haunting, and mythic undertones this book is perfect for a September read.
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