|
Leviathan
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Leviathan for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`This singular, magnificent book inspires both awe and shame -- awe of the whales, shame of the human species that has tried to destroy them.' --Alex Ross, bestselling author of The Rest is Noise
Review
‘This singular, magnificent book inspires both awe and shame – awe of the whales, shame of the human species that has tried to destroy them. In the end, Hoare’s virtuosic sympathy for his subject makes you believe in the better angels of our nature.’ Alex Ross, bestselling author of ‘The Rest is Noise’
‘This history of man’s dealings with whales is respectful, even mystical.’ Daily Mail
‘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
‘So compelling and all-encompassing that it cast a spell on me that endured for days after I had done turning its beautifully illustrated pages…This is the book he was born to write, a classic of its kind…What poetry there is here and what a balm for the soul.’ Observer
‘Enjoyable trawl through the history, literature and lore of whales…As well as being a showcase for descriptive prose of great beauty, “Leviathan” is full of fascinating facts.’ Guardian
‘An elegant writer with a sharp eye for quirky detail…A lyrical and timely reminder of what we have to lose if we don't change our greedy ways.’ Mail on Sunday
‘In Hoare's hands, whales are almost limitlessly strange and interesting.’ Sunday Times
‘Hoare’s idiosyncratic mingling of autobiography, anthropology and archaeology has reached its zenith…an enthralling volume. Hoare has the skill and humility to make this work, to him, great art and the Leviathan are both inexplicable, unknowable forces from the deep, wherein lies their wonder.’ Daily Telegraph
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
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.
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
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.
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.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
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.
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.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Mesmerising
I was disappointed at reading the one-star review this book received, as I thought this was one of the best reads I had last year. Read more
Published 6 months ago by noobular
Fascinating, but rambling
Part biography of the author of Moby Dick, part social history of the whaling industry, part natural history of whales, the book contains a wealth of superb facts and anecdotes and... Read more
Published 11 months ago by K. Ennis
A meta-Moby-Dick?
In "Leviathan", Hoare attempts a sort of "meta-Moby-Dick". Taking Melville's controversial giant of a book as his starting point, he weaves around it a tapestry of fact, myth and... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Peasant
Only for the enthusiast
Moby Dick is my favourite novel, as a result I found large parts of this book interesting and worthwhile. Read more
Published 13 months ago by TMC
Pale imitation
The best thing about this book was that it motivated me to finally get around to reading Moby Dick which the author quotes extensively throughout. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Angelica Pickles
Book for Intellectual whale lovers everywhere
I absolutely adored this book, digesting every page thoroughly and never wanting it to end. It perfectly balances the natural history of whales with literary analysis of... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Kate FS
I am (still) waiting the book
I am (still) waiting the book. So I can't writte the review at the moment...
:-(
:-(
Published 19 months ago by Daniel Gonzalez
Very interesting indeed
As a fan of Moby-Dick, I was attracted to this book as it has a lot to say about that great work and its author Herman Melville. Read more
Published 22 months ago by D.Buttery
A Whale of a Book
Philip Hoare's wonderful book is a meandering meditation on the great cetaceans and on mankind's troubled relationship with these extraordinary creatures. Read more
Published on 2 Jun 2010 by Ian Richardson
A Lovely Book.
I had to read this book twice to fully appreciate it, and I now wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone I know who shares my interest in all that feeds the mind.
Published on 30 Dec 2009 by K. J. Dean
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
