On Hunting Whales and Failing

In the Heart of the Sea is not what I expected, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The book retells the story of the Narrative of the Whale Ship Essex (the inspiration for Moby Dick) using research and a more modern account from the cabin boy, discovered a few decades ago and unpublished until the 90s. (Even then it was published only by a historical society.) The actual incident of the sinking is pretty short. The book is a lot more about what happened before and, especially, the horror that came after.

On Loyalty

"You must know that a man can have only one invulnerable loyalty, loyalty to his own concept of the obligations of manhood. All other loyalties are merely deputies of that one."

Nero Wolfe

From Rex Stout, Gambit