Instead of being a page-turner, 'Moby-Dick' is a repository of American history and culture and the essentials of Western literature. The book is so encyclopedic that space aliens could use it to re-create the whale fishery as it once existed on the planet Earth in the midst of the 19th century.

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

In the years to come, the combination of climate change and population growth could have a devastating effect on the planet and, needless to say, on humanity.

Nathaniel Philbrick Quotes