I found the book not at all what it seemed when I picked it up in the bookstore. I agree with others who were disappointed in this book. Not only is it much less than a thorough discussion of whales, and involves way too much whaling, it also is way too involved with discussing Moby Dick and Melville. And while I was not in the least offended by Hoare's focus on homoerotic themes, this is not where I expected to find them. Disappointing.

I enjoyed most pages in this book. Mr. Hoare has managed to wrap together a mix between historical research, modern zoology and literature. The book is basically a very deep and modern analysis of Melville's Moby Dick combined with chapters about whale biology, the history of whaling and fun little known facts about the uses mankind has had for whaling products.

Some chapters can feel a bit heavy but overall, it is a very good book that will keep most readers entertained.

I bought this book because it covered the whaling industry from a broad perspective. Some reviewers have complained that it is not a biology textbook about whales. This is true. What it is a very literary, easy to read, yet fact filled musing about the whole subject of whales and whaling. There is not any overly emotional, hand wringing or politicization of the subject, yet the author does not shrink from problematic areas such as the of using intelligent living beings as a source of renewable energy, margarine or lipstick and corsets. Yet humans can find good use for any thing that is present in large quantities. Unfortunately for whales, they got caught in human's leviathan industrialization.

The great thing about this book is that it also seamlessly blends in so many strands of thought, such as the love and awe of the sea, of ships and sailors, of the fishing industry, of American and World history and always in the background is Moby Dick, Ishmael, Melville, Captain Ahab, and other iconic characters and locations. I have never read the Moby Dick, but you don't have to if you have any appreciation for any the world of the sea.

This is a masterful tale of the majesty of whales, and the history of whaling that, in retrospect, now seems cruel but at the time was not deemed to be so. Like Mr. Hoare, for me "Whales exist beyond the normal...". However, in my book, 'The Tempest's Roar', I sprinted across the line of anthropomorphism where he, perhaps wisely, chose not to tread. Nevertheless, this book adds a profoundly powerful piece to the body of knowledge about these magnificent beings, as well as the tragedy that humans once inflicted upon them. R.A.R. Clouston

Philip Hoare became fascinated by whales as a child, and that interest deepened with his great appreciation of Herman-Melville's "Moby-Dick". His lifelong obsession -- that is not too strong a word -- with whales has led him to write "The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea", a book about what we know about whales (and what we do not know), about whale-hunting (unfortunately, the dominant traditional mode of interaction between humans and whales), and about his own personal journey to learn and understand.

"The Whale" is a volume full of both wonders (the magnificent whales themselves) and woes (primarily the dismal history of hunting whales), the whole illuminated by Hoare's musings about his own experiences and quest to better understand whales. The book is not a dry compendium of biological details, although certainly there are numerous and fascinating tidbits of information, such as that a recent study has shown that Arctic bowhead whales can live for more than two hundred years. Rather, it is an intensely personal immersion into all things whale, carried out with powerful and elegant writing.

My personal mental imagery of whaling is firmly tied to the nineteenth century, courtesy of childhood visits to Mystic Seaport and the New Bedford Whaling Museum and much influenced by Melville's "Moby-Dick". Regardless of whether the men setting forth in their wooden vessels to hunt whale should be viewed as having something of the "heroic" about them, at least -- as Hoare puts it -- the whales had a chance to fight back. Twentieth century whaling, mechanized and motorized -- as depicted in gory detail by the author was instead a horror appropriate for an industrialized Dante's "Inferno".

To balance the melancholy story of whale hunting, however, the author also includes his personal joyful experiences of whale watching and, in a wonderful concluding chapter, of swimming with whales off the Azores.

Although "The Whale" in part makes for grim reading, in the end the volume is an entrancing portrait of wondrous creatures and of hope for our future relations with them.

I expected a book on whales--different types, habits, culture, etc. This is more a book on the history of whaling, using Melville's Moby Dick as a template. I really didn't care for it, and stopped reading before I was halfway through. I found the descriptions of whaling practices disturbing. Perhaps that was what the author intended, but I didn't like it. It's a well written and well structured book, but not pleasant and not frankly particularly interesting to me.

After hearing the author on the radio, I was thrilled to find my local library had the book available. Now I'm very glad I didn't buy it, because I found the actaul book quite disappointing. There are interesting passages -- the story of the author's own pursuit of an encounter with whales is vivid and moving, and I enjoyed his examination of Melville's life and work (apparently repurposed from a program he created for the BBC). But the bulk of the book, as another reviewer has mentioned, is about whaling, not whales. Not only are there far too many details (many of them repeated several times) about the development of whaling in various oceans and centuries, there are too many descriptions of beached whales (how many do we really need?!), and too many visits to whale museums. If that's where your interests lie, you'll probably enjoy this book. But the information about the whales themselves is patchy and scattered. Hoare's model for the book is Ahab's pursuit of Moby-Dick, where the whale is seen only through the attempts to capture it, and the animal itself remains mysterious. Unfortunately "The Whale" follows the same pattern, and what is tragedy in Melville is only a missed opportunity in Hoare.

This wide-ranging paean to the world's largest mammals had its origins in fear. As a boy, British biographer Hoare was terrified of water; his imagination reeling at the depths his eyes could not fathom.

Nevertheless, in his mid-20s he determined to learn to swim. "In the chilly East End pool, built between the wars, I discovered that the water could bear up my body. I realized what I had been missing; the buoyancy of myself."

He still wasn't ready to obsess about the whale for our benefit; he still found his attention wandering from the density of Herman Melville's Moby Dick despite repeated attempts. It wasn't until his first visit to New England and his first sight of a finback on a whale watch out of Provincetown that Hoare was hooked by the majesty of Leviathan.

He dove into Moby-Dick with new eyes and prepared to follow the whale himself, guided by Melville and his own curiosity. "Now, as I came to it again, I saw that Moby Dick is a book made mythic by the whale, as much as it made a myth of the whale in turn."

Hoare muses on Moby Dick's abject failure to stir the collective imagination during Melville's lifetime and the classic status it has since achieved. "Each time I read it, it is as if I am reading it for the first time....Every day I am reminded that it is part of our collective imagination; from newspaper leaders that evoke Ahab in the pursuit of the war on terror, to the ubiquitous chain of coffee shops named after the Pequod's first mate, Starbuck..."

A biographer at heart, Hoare (Noel Coward, Wilde's Last Stand) uses Melville's life as a springboard into 19th century whaling. Coming from a solidly middle class background of revolutionary heroes, Indian fighters and seafarers, Melville ran away to sea at 19. His second sea journey was on a whaler out of New Bedford.

Hoare gives us the seaman's life - the cramped, efficient quarters, the pay and food, the work, the clothing. He explores New Bedford. "To look at it now, you would not guess that New Bedford was once the richest city in America."

The book seems effortlessly organized as the author shifts among Melville's adventures and friendships and disappointments, the dangers, rewards and myths of the whaling life, the uses of whales and their architecture, biology and evolution, all of it seamlessly intertwined throughout the book.

We learn about ambergris and spermaceti, about the tactile sensuousness of shipboard oil pressing. There is a tremendous wealth of information - facts, myths, literary allusions, history, political scheming, science, culture, biography, and more, and all of it is integrated, fascinating and necessary.

Hoare quotes liberally from Moby Dick, sharing vivid stories and accounts of whaling that Melville himself read and used; the tales of sea monsters and whales who fought back, the lives and ships lost, the whales harpooned, killed and harvested.

If Melville's classic and the whales themselves anchor the book, its connecting digressions loosely follow the whaling places. Hoare explores the ports of New York, New Bedford and Nantucket, from which the sperm whales were hunted, pointing out the mansions and heading out with the captains who built them.

As the whaling trade moved onto Europe Hoare follows it to Hull, Southampton, London, out through the British Empire, digressing into politics, changing economies, and technology. As electricity and petroleum phased out whale oil, new processes expanded its use into lubricants, paint, brake fluid, ice cream, lipstick, insulin, pet food and lots more.

Factory fleets took hundreds of the slow-reproducing animals and whale populations decreased around the globe, even as our knowledge of them increased. The gathering technique sperm whales used to protect against killer whales (their only non-human predator) has made them easier for humans to kill en masse.

Hoare looks at cetacean brain research and diet and culture, then goes for a big finish - swimming with the whales in "their nursery, their living space, their dining room," off the Azores.

Hoare is a fluid writer, planting an echo of Melville himself in his prose. Winner of Britain's prestigious BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, this is a magical sort of book, deeply researched (with an excellent bibliography and index) and lovingly written. It's a travel book and a memoir with a reverence for whales. It's a history and a biography and a naturalist's delight. It's a literary accompaniment to Moby Dick and an introduction to the whaling industry.

It's entertaining and endlessly informative and recommended for just about anyone who reads.

I loved this book.

great story of Man, Whales, and their subsequent collision in one man, Philip Hoare.

a MUST read for anyone who's ever had any interest in whales or Moby Dick.

Like most people, I have loved whales since I was a kid (though I have always been more fascinated by sharks...). This book's title, however, was a bit misleading... there were a lot of fascinating facts about whales, but it was honestly more about whaling than the whales themselves. Which made it a pretty depressing (albeit very interesting) read, all in all. And throughout, the book constantly referenced Moby-Dick, and the life of Herman Melville. So, if you are very familiar with that piece of classic literature, I think you will enjoy this more than someone who only has limited knowledge of the book.
My only real complaint was that I would have liked even more information about the whales themselves, their lives and their habits, and a little less about the cruelty and utter destruction brought upon them by mankind. Although, this book managed to give a balanced look into whaling, and did not come off as the Sea Shepard's, or another eco-terrorist group's, manual. There certainly were a lot of facts that any eco-group could use, however. In handling this sensitive topic of history, this author certainly did a wonderfully detailed job. Well-written (despite a few rather abrupt transitions), and well-researched, the photos and drawings added a lot to this good, but on the whole, rather depressing look into the history of humanity's relationship with the whale.