The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea (P.S.) Paperback – Illustrated, 8 Feb. 2011

This is an outstanding book for those who wish to know more about whales, or have already been fascinated. BUT, it already exists in a British edition, called Leviathan, and has done for three years. If you want a hardback copy at a very reasonable price, then go ahead and buy this US edition. Meanwhile for reviews on the book go tohttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Leviathan-Philip-Hoare/dp/0007230141/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1352982313&sr=8-3.I saw the author speak recently and he spoke as eloquently as he writes. Buy his book so he can keep watching and educating people about whales. Because they're worth it

This is a very thorough book when it comes to whales and their history. I recently read for the first time Moby Dick and have since been fascinated with these incredible creatures and the great wrongs humans have inflicted upon them. Hoare gives us a truly unique look at whales and I.

There is a reason this book won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction... it is an exceptionally good read while being highly educational!"The Whale" is NOT a scientific treatise on whales yet there are enough facts and details about whales to satisfy just about any level of whale enthusiast and the many illustrations are just an added bonus.Philip Hoare deeply admires and respects whales and perhaps is even obsessed with them. It is this passion for his subject that gives the book its "hook" as it literally grabs you and pulls you along for the ride.Hoare tries very hard to seperate fact from fiction as it pertains to our knowledge of whales. He uses Herman Melville's classic "Moby Dick" as a stepping stone to do this. By referencing passages from the book as well as other historical journals and events that Melville might have used to source his story Hoare provides a dramatic history of the whale, the whaling industry and the tenuous relationship that whales and men have had over the past 400+ years! This provides some of the best and most riveting writing in the book. "You are there" as a sailor yells "there she blows" and the crew goes into action to chase and catch the whale.But throughout Hoare provides specific and fascinating details about each species of whale that he introduces: from Narwhals, Belugas, Bowheads to the grandaddy of them all... the Sperm whale! Hoare tells of why whales were so in demand during the 18th and 19th century and why men would travel to the four corners of the earth risking death to catch them and bring home the spoils while he also tells of the naturalists and the scientists who made it their life's work to go on expeditions to study whales and their world.Hoare takes us into the 20th century and the almost indiscriminate slaughter of whales to again satisfy the need for their by products... one of which was as a base ingredient for the manufacture of nitro glycerine during the world wars!For a man who as a child feared the sea and would not step anywhere near the waters edge... Philip Hoare has become a champion of Whales and our understanding of them. This book is a tremendous tribute to that giant of the- THE WHALE!

The fact that I read this entire book while taking a course on Moby-Dick -- and it was not on the reading list -- is a testament not to my own reading interests, but to Hoare's masterful and engaging prose. He weaves extensive quotes about whaling, many from Melville, with personal anecdotes and reflections. Though he covered a wide range of territory, from the history of hunting whales to contemporary whale-watching expeditions, he handles each angle with grace and beautiful prose.

Interesting and a little torturous at the same time. I was expecting an in-depth study of various whales and what was delivered was indeed a very in-depth study of the sperm whale but then only comparatively fleeting studies on the beluga, right and narwhal. There was no study of the killer whale. Then again, maybe my expectations were a little to high? After all, it is difficult to properly study an animal who dives to greater depths than humans can follow, and as the sperm whale travels globally (literally), it has been difficult to track them fully.What was interesting and more than depressing was the history of whale hunting, not just in the technology used to spot, hunt and kill them, but what whales were used for, their oil, their baleens, even their teeth. There was also some interesting history in the whalers, people who not only owned and captained whaling fleets but the people who had to work on them.Unfortunately (for me), there were a great number of references to Moby Dick and the life of Herman Melville. In some chapters, it seemed almost as if the author was quoting passages from Melville's work to validate the research done on whales by the scientists. And given that I really did not enjoy reading this tome the first time around, it was hard going having (far too many) passages from chapters in the book hurled at me yet again. It might have been an unfair bias on my part but the author seems to have adopted the same pedantic style of writing his hero Melville adopted.

Despite its title, this is not a book strictly about whales, but rather a hodge-podge of myriad information on almost everything related to whales, whaling, Moby Dick and its author.The structure of the book is quite intricate, with different subjects often intertwined, and the same subject sometimes scattered along different parts of the book, what I found sometimes annoying. Mr. Hoare, in addition to cetaceans, is obsessed with Melville's masterpiece; Ishmael is a constant companion, quoted often to illustrate the book's meanderings through whales' biology, anatomy, behavior and unhappy interplay with mankind. Sperm whales are, as would be expected, looked at in more detail. Even then a lot is left unexplained; for obvious reasons leviathans are not easily observed in their natural environment and most of our knowledge about them comes merely from the observation of corpses. Whales in general are mysterious beasts, but sperm whales even more so: the largest toothed animals, mammals' ablest divers, hunters of squids of unfathomable size, owners of surreptitious echolocation powers, and so on.Mr. Hoare being a biographer, a short one of Herman Melville is provided, revolving around Moby Dick, of course. It goes through his seafaring experience in the Acushnet and the several literary works derived from it, his acquaintance with Hawthorne - to whom Moby Dick is dedicated - and their friendship up to Melville's death.The history of modern whaling is covered more extensively than whales themselves. Focusing mainly on America and Britain, whaling industry is described since its craddle in Nantucket in the 17th century. So is the evolution of the techniques used to hunt, process and conserve their prey. It's a fascinating and sad history, in which the astonishing array of uses devised along the centuries for cetaceans' carcasses are described - from the pre-electricity need of oil for ilumination up to the use of spermaceti-derived lubricants in spaceships. Chapters relating the slaughtering along the 20th century, with the use of the modern weaponry devised to this end - explosive harpoons, huge factory-ships, helicopters and airplanes to spot the catch among them - are particularly nauseating. The saddest part of it is that the killing only resumed when the cetacean population had been depleted to a level that turned its exploitation economically unviable. According to a scientist quoted in the book, "Conservation had failed mainly because whales belonged to no one and it was no one's direct interest to look after them."I think that some editing, reducing descriptions of whaling museums and stranded whales, for example, would benefit "The Whale". The narrative of Thoreau's contacts with whales also seems irrelevant in the book's context. I lacked, on the other hand, a more substantial approach to pre-modern whaling.If you are a Mody Dick fan, I highly recommend this book. If your interest lies only in flesh-and-bone whales though, not so much so.