Melville House Books

Herman Melville

• Moby-Dick, the card game

  Moby-Dick, the BBC historical drama; Moby-Dick, the interactive sing-along theatrical production; Moby-Dick, the beer; Moby-Dick, the felted version? Chalk up one more adaption for Herman Melville’s novel: Moby-Dick, the card… Read more »

• Coming soon: new Moby-Dick adaptation (sort of)

  Whales are big this spring—they’ve already been seen entrancing underwater paparazzi and invading the American Museum of Natural History. The BBC is also hooked: last week they announced plans for a new drama called… Read more »

• Whale words

  The word “whale” occurs 1,685 times in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. “Elijah” is there 15 times, “Ahab” 512, and “harpoon” 256 times. I know this not from dutiful reading, but because… Read more »

• The Annotated Moby-Dick

  GalleyCat reported yesterday on a project that’s looking to produce an annotated edition of Moby-Dick, with a campaign on Kickstarter to raise the funds to publish it. Chris Routledge is the… Read more »

• Drink your book

  Talk about your tie-ins: fantastic indie bookstore Powell’s in Portland, Oregon has created a beer inspired by Moby-Dick to celebrate their 41st anniversary, with Rogue Ales and Spirits, which also… Read more »

• Ishmael’s chowder

  If you read the “Illuminations” in the back of Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, there is a recipe for roasting a certain kind of nut … but it’s a… Read more »

• And then we all giggled at the sperm-squeezing chapter

  I am unsure of Moby-Dick’s place in our canon. I have my doubts about whether it is the Great American Novel, or even whether it is Herman Melville’s best work.… Read more »

• Haunting Herman

  Obviously, we here at Melville House consider the work of our namesake Herman Melville haunting. But a group of people in upstate New York find Melville’s actual house haunted. The… Read more »

• Classic book covers redesigned to promote literacy

  Thanks to this post on Flavorwire, I found out about an international project to promote literacy through redesigned covers of classic novels. Belgian design firm beshart has launched an effort to… Read more »

• Moby-Dick Big Read audio project

  The Moby-Dick Big Read project, aimed at getting more people to read Herman Melville’s classic novel, launched earlier this week. The project is the brainchild of author Philip Hoare and artist… Read more »