Fields Of Heather: Moby Dick, The Big Read & A Sort of Sequel -

The Moby Dick Big Read - each chapter read by a different voice, including those of Nathaniel Philbrick, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sir David Attenborough and many others, and also a "sort of sequel" to Moby Dick, new in 2024, by Tara Karr Roberts. If you like podcasts, there's also a BBC4 In Our Time podcast discussing Moby Dick, at the bottom of this post.

Wild And Distant Seas

By Tara Karr Roberts

https://amzn.to/3vRRdJ7

While looking at new book releases this week, I came across a recommendation for a sort of sequel to Moby Dick. Not a sequel exactly.. "Using Moby Dick as a starting point, Tara Karr Roberts crafts a gorgeous, character-driven narrative that is part retelling and part wholly original historical fiction. " and ... "in a narrative that follows Evangeline and her descendants from mid-nineteenth century Nantucket to Boston, Brazil, Florence, and Idaho. Moving, beautifully written, and elegantly conceived, Wild and Distant Seas takes Moby-Dick as its starting point, but Tara Karr Roberts brings four remarkable women to life in a spellbinding epic all her own."

While this looks incredibly interesting and I have added it to my to read list, it made me think.. have I ever fully read Moby Dick? I've read most of the classics. But Moby Dick? I know I've picked it up a few times, but I don't think I've ever completed it. It's a classic, so there are lots of options for downloading the free ebook. While I was browsing those options, I found this:

In 2013, Plymouth University produced Moby Dick The Big Read - an audiobook version of Herman Melville's novel, with famous voices each reading a chapter.

Celebrity readers include: Stephen Fry, Neil Tennant, Fiona Shaw, Will Self, Benedict Cumberbatch, China Miéville, Tony Kushner, John Waters, Simon Callow, Sir David Attenborough, Prime Minister David Cameron. Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver finishes off the whole project, reading the Epilogue.