Leviathan: Amazon.co.uk: Philip Hoare: Books

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Reviews for Leviathan:

‘A wonderfully idiosyncratic book, passionate zoology counter-pointed with the glories of Moby-Dick…This is a deep book about the deep: an inspiring book about inspirational beings…If you can’t board a ship this week, read this book.’ Simon Barnes, The Times

‘Successful as Hoare’s book is in expanding and its encyclopaedic sources, it also has a personal thread, detailing his own fascination with whales. The author describes his experiences swimming with sperm whales off the Azores, and his prose rises admirably to the demands of the encounter.’ The Financial Times

‘As well as being a showcase for descriptive prose of great beauty, Leviathan is full of fascinating facts…These are tough times for whales, but Hoare brings to light an endangered world of cetacean savoir vivre that mocks our best efforts to be happy.’ The Guardian

‘A celebratory study of the gentle giants that have for so long gripped the human imagination…This book is a lyrical and timely reminder of what we have to lose if we don’t change our greedy ways.’ The Mail on Sunday

‘Anyone who loves the sea will love this book…a Sebalesque triumph, in which the author meditates on his obsession with whales…it is one of those books into which you can dip at random and find something interesting.’ The Sunday Telegraph

‘Philip Hoare’s wonderfully illustrated biography is studded with glittering shards of natural history and social science but it’s also an exploration of the potent place whales occupy in the collective imagination.’ Metro

‘A superb book…This is the book [Phillip Hoare] was born to write, a classic of its kind.’ Rachel Cooke, The Observer

‘…studded with generous illustrations and poetic details…In Hoare’s hands whales are almost limitlessly strange and interesting.’ Bee Wilson, Sunday Times

‘A scintillating, scattershot, blunderbuss of a book. Throughout the book, Hoare’s unbridled enthusiasm for his subject is infectious…this thoroughly engaging, rigorously researched and often revelatory book is a joy to read and one which Melville, surely, would have appreciated.’ Independent on Sunday

‘Written with consummate style, impeccable research and brilliant insight, is an original and fascinating piece of work. The Big Issue

‘Much of (this book) is fascinating. The empathy he shows, particularly with Melville in his obsessed writing of the great whale novel, and in his love of and admiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne, is exemplary and moving. And his amazement at the huge bodies seems perfectly real.’ The Spectator

Praise for ‘England’s Lost Eden’:

‘No one who is interested in the complexity of our society could fail to be thrilled and quite possibly entranced by this remarkable volume.’ Robert mcCrum, Observer.

‘Quite startling beauty.’ Sunday Times

‘Arresting…Hoare writes with a mesmeric facility.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Philip Hoare’s writing is quite untrammelled by convention and opens up astonishing views at every turn.’ W.G. Sebald

‘Hoare's personal pilgrimage, wandering, reflective, frequently very personal, owes much to WG Sebald, including the device of peppering the text with black and white pictures. Whales have a very intimate and troubled relationship to man, one which this elegiac book does much to illuminate.’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

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'Philip Hoare has long been acclaimed as a brilliantly unconventional writer...This is the book he was born to write'

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

A wonderfully eclectic, engrossing read... 19 Nov 2009

By C. Ball TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This isn't my usual kind of reading - as much as I like whales I wouldn't say I was so fascinated by them as to want to read an entire book on them - and yet this had me spellbound. Philip Hoare has a wonderful, poetic way of writing, and his own love for and fascination with whales come over with every word. This isn't just a scientific book about whales; it's an exploration of the whale in human history, religion, literature. He talks about Melville's Moby-Dick as much as whaling and the whale itself, and it just works. It's an incredibly moving read at times too, particularly when he talks about what man has done to the whale. This is a wonderful book.

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37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

My top book of the year so far 15 July 2009

By Kirsty Hall

Format:Paperback

This book absolutely blew me away.

I'm a sucker for books that meander through different areas of human knowledge and Leviathan does this with almost effortless aplomb. Hoare delves into literature, history, science, anecdote, anthropology and art to explore our long and often difficult relationship with whales. Hoare manages to dive between poetic lyrical writing and the harshest of scientific facts with only an occasional misstep.

His writing just soars - I was alternatively speechless with wonder, livid with anger, enraptured with awe and on several occasions weeping with shame at how we've treated and continue to treat whales.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

A brilliant account of Whales and their effect on the human consciousness 19 Sep 2009

By J A C Corbett VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Whales exert a huge presence in modern consciousness - `Save the Whale' has been a clarion call of the environmental movement for as long as I remember - and yet comparatively little is known about them. Indeed only recently have accurate anatomical drawings been made, and for years scientists and natural historians were reliant on guesswork.

This is Philip Hoare's history of his own fascination with whales. It starts with his childhood encounters with life size replicas at London's Natural History Museum and ends with his adult encounters, a stunning and poignant account of swimming with sperm whales in the Azores. Throughout he mixes literary criticism (invariably Herman Melville features heavily), social, cultural and natural history - much, alas, until recently bloody and driven by man's profit motive rather than his passion for nature - with his own profoundly moving experiences of these great beasts.

It is in so many ways a perfect book: accessible, evocative, brilliantly written, expertly portioned between Hoare and the great Leviathons (and never, as so many of these sort of books are, self indulgent) and superbly illustrated; a worthy winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.

Leviathan [Hardcover]

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