On My Bookshelf [In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex]

It has actually been a few years since I read In the Heart of the Sea, but I bring it up now because the movie of this story is being released next week!  I came up on this book entirely by chance, a complete fluke.  Hubby and I were in Nantucket visiting his BFF when I twisted my ankle and spent the day recuperating.  I read with the sea wind blowing through the windows and became entirely captivated.  One might think the setting in which I was reading led me to feel this way about the book, and perhaps rightfully so, but everyone I know that has read it has felt the same way....without actually reading it on the island overlooking the sea.  ;)  It's a gripping story (the actual inspiration for Moby Dick) , filled with history and details about the tiny little island and it's lifeline, whaling. 

Amazon says:
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic* measures in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents-including a long-lost account written by the ship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon.

*I'm highlighting drastic, because I do want to warn you, the measures are severely drastic.  Incredibly so.

I'm anxious to see the movie, but am debating on a quick read of the book one again before I do.  As always, I'd love to know what's on your bookshelf!!

Happy Reading!