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for Moby Dick) using research and a more modern account from the cabin boy, discovered a few decades ago and unpublished until the 90s.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.