Moby Dick

The greatest American novel. Not the most readable, but the most ambitious and rewarding.

Better as an audiobook. The language is meant to be heard. It has a biblical rhythm to it.

Ahab's monomaniacal pursuit of the whale is the ultimate literary portrait of obsession.

I admire it immensely but "enjoy" isn't the right word. It demands everything from you as a reader.

The sermon by Father Mapple is worth the price of admission alone. Absolute fire and brimstone.

Starbuck is the most tragic character - the only sane man on a doomed ship, unable to change its course.

Skip nothing. Even the seemingly dull chapters have hidden gems if you pay attention.

A book about everything disguised as a book about whaling. Melville packed the entire human condition in here.

Melville's humor is underappreciated. The book is genuinely funny in places between the existential dread.

The whiteness of the whale chapter is one of the most philosophically dense passages in American literature.