What's it like to be on a small boat with no power but oars, and over 1,500 miles from the nearest land? Two friends decided to find out... Over a boozy Sunday lunch, flatmates James Adair and Ben Stenning made a promise to row across an ocean despite having no sailing or rowing experience whatsoever. This is an account of their 116 days at sea as they undertook the voyage of a lifetime. From eerie calms to their capsize in stormy seas, their determination and perseverance pushed them through the relentless dangers of rowing and sleeping under sun, moon, wind and stars for day upon day. Their tale is one of moonbows and meteor showers, passing whales and thieving fish, lurking sharks and giant squid ... and a terrifying fight for survival.

Bring the Classics To Life. These novels have been adapted into 10 short chapters that will excite the reluctant reader as well as the enthusiastic one. Key words are defined and used in context. Multiple-choice questions require the student to recall specific details, sequence the events, draw inferences from story context, develop another name for the chapter, and choose the main idea. Let the Classics introduce Kipling, Stevenson, and H.G. Wells. Your students will embrace the notion of Crusoe's lonely reflections, the psychological reactions of a Civil War soldier at Chancellorsville, and the tragedy of the Jacobite Cause in 18th Century Scotland. In our society, knowledge of these Classics is a cultural necessity. Improves fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

"There have been a lot of crazy books about Melville and Moby-Dickiut this isn't one of them. Dowling's overarching analogy, between Ishmael's and Melville's obsessions and the annual marathon group-reading of Moby-Dick in New Bedford, makes perfect sense and generates illuminating analyses of the novel and its cultural contexts. It also lets him open his book up into a passionate exploration of how great literature can still play a vital role in people's lives today"-Damion Searls, editor, Thoreau's The Journal: 1837-1861 and Melville's; or The Whale --Book Jacket.

A nineteenth-century sailor must navigate a future world of airships and soaring whales in the Hugo Award–winning author’s sci-fi sequel to Moby-Dick. When the whaling ship Pequod is destroyed, Ishmael is the lone survivor to escape a watery grave. But shortly after his rescue, he finds himself slipping through a rift in time and space—into a future Earth. In this strange new world, he encounters bloodsucking vegetation and a blood-red sun. Here, too, there are whales to hunt—but whales that soar like airships through the alien sky. With no seas to sail and no safe harbor to call home, Ishmael must take to the heavens. And so he embarks on wild new adventures that include being hunted by air-sharks, wild aerial battles on floating ships, journeys through booby-trapped labyrinths, hand-to-hand combat, and much more derring-do.

The history of whaling as an industry on this continent has been well-told in books, including some that have been bestsellers, but what hasn’t been told is the story of whaling’s leaders of color in an era when the only other option was slavery. Whaling was one of the first American industries to exhibit diversity. A man became a captain not because he was white or well connected, but because he knew how to kill a whale. Along the way, he could learn navigation and reading and writing. Whaling presented a tantalizing alternative to mainland life. Working with archival records at whaling museums, in libraries, from private archives and interviews with people whose ancestors were whaling masters, Finley culls stories from the lives of over 50 black whaling captains to create a portrait of what life was like for these leaders of color on the high seas. Each time a ship spotted a whale, a group often including the captain would jump into a small boat, row to the whale, and attack it, at times with the captain delivering the killing blow. The first, second, or third mate and boat steerer could eventually have opportunities to move into increasingly responsible roles. Finley explains how this skills-based system propelled captains of color to the helm. The book concludes as facts and factions conspire to kill the industry, including wars, weather, bad management, poor judgment, disease, obsolescence, and a non-renewable natural resource. Ironically, the end of the Civil War allowed the African Americans who were captains to exit the difficult and dangerous occupation—and make room for the Cape Verdean who picked up the mantle, literally to the end of the industry.

New perspectives on three centuries of Indian presence in New England

Unlock the more straightforward side of Moby-Dick, or The Whale with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of Moby-Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville, an exciting tale about an enormous whale named Moby Dick and a ship captain's hunt for revenge. It is now considered one of the most important novels in American literature, and has been adapted numerous times for film and television. Melville remained unknown during his time but his fame has, since his death, skyrocketed and he has even had a whale species named in his honour thanks to the staggering impact his novel has had. Find out everything you need to know about Moby-Dick, or The Whale in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you in your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

This study presents Moby-Dick as a novel with three distinct but interconnecting stories: Ishmael’s, which he shares ten years after it has taken place; Ahab’s, which is Ishmael's account of the memorable captain of a whaling ship; and a third which centres on whales and whaling, which has not received significant critical attention. While each of these perspectives compete for prominence in the narrative, Ahab and Ishmael's stories have often distracted from the vital significance of the whaling narrative as what outlasts Ahab’s obsessive mission. Catalano rights this wrong by coming to a strikingly original and thought-provoking conclusion which becomes the heart of the book's argument: “the unity of Melville’s book comes, first, from the way the numerous literary, philosophical, and religious reflections are rooted in those magnificent beings, whales and in the men and ships that pursue them, and, second, in the way these reflections illuminate our own lives.”

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year A revelatory tale of science, adventure, and modern myth. When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. Hohn's accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. Moby-Duck is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable. With each new discovery, Hohn learns of another loose thread, and with each successive chase, he comes closer to understanding where his castaway quarry comes from and where it goes. In the grand tradition of Tony Horwitz and David Quammen, Moby-Duck is a compulsively readable narrative of whimsy and curiosity.

As the bail out of 2008 neared, Tyler Hopkins, chief negotiator for Big Gnocchi Brothers Inc., felt the press of the white whale beaching toward Main Street and feared the carcass implosion. Tylers BGB, Inc. foreman, Jamber, lead singer in an AC/DC cover band, is due in Family Court to remit forty-eight thousand dollars in back child support of which he is forty-two thousand dollars light. Limon, twenty-three year old American-Mexican immigrant, is the force of the Gotham Minors, a schist breaking division of Tylers company. Limon wields a one hundred and twelve pound sledgehammer over the hands of splitting maul cradler, Umberto, a sixty-two year old Puerto Rican transplant from the Bronx. The third member of the crew, light barer, key man and mule, is a rebellious scholar from Merida, who distinguishes the six mauls used by the minors to slab schist, by linking the names of the Apostles from the New Testament with those from the Gnostic Gospels--unbeknownst to the romantic scholar, he is also lunch fetch. It is the task of the Gotham Minors, breaking schist below the sidewalks of Manhattan, to clear enough room in the earth for the passage of a mans headwithout disturbing the neighbors.