A masterpiece of storytelling, this epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding and fanatical sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him. In telling the tale of Ahab's passion for revenge and the fateful voyage that ensued, Melville produced far more than the narrative of a hair-raising journey; Moby-Dick is a tale for the ages that sounds the deepest depths of the human soul. Interspersed with graphic sketches of life aboard a whaling vessel,...

"Rites and Passages presents a social history of American whaling. Drawing on the diaries of sailors and on ship logs, this volume examines the beliefs and behaviors of men who labored at sea. It looks at the relationship between sailors and society ashore, reexamines the "tyrannical" sea captain, and studies the social dynamics of the ship's company. In particular it considers the ways in which whalemen related to women and how seafaring served as...

"Leshka, a 15-year-old boy, lives in an isolated village on the Bering Strait, like most men in his village, he is a whale hunter. When Internet arrives in the village, everything changes in the life. The appearance of an unusual girl on a webcam site fascinates him. The protagonist's state of being in love with an image so far away ... leads him to the most courageous act in his life: to embark on the dangerous journey ... to find his love"--IMDb...