Recommended Reading???

  Perhaps it's a sign of recovery of some sort. In the first weeks and months after Joanne's death I had to will myself to read. The best I could do was try to keep up with my two book clubs. Now reading is a joy again and I take that as good sign. Frequently when I've finished a book I post a "Recommended Reading" notice on Facebook.  Included on the post is a bit about the book and my response to it.
   Now I'm ambivalent! Do I recommend the book I just read or don't I? It's well written, interesting and very well researched. But in the author's own words "The Essex disaster is not a tale of adventure. It is a tragedy that happens to be one of the greatest true stories ever told."  P. 236 of  In the HEART of the SEA: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
   Do you want to read the gory details of whale hunting and slaughter? Do you want to read about the cannibalism of the sailors shipwrecked by the attack of a sperm whale? Then, this is the book for you.
The tale is very well told and accompanied by a prodigious amount of information about Nantucket and the early whaling industry. It is a fascinating study of human behavior when men are pushed to the very limits of survival. It's always good to be reminded of how thin a veneer civilization is if it leads to self-understanding and compassion for others. This is the tragedy that lay behind Herman Melville's Moby Dick, which I haven't read since I was aboard ship in the early '60's.
   I'm still ambivalent, so, you decide,

Takk for alt,

Al