Herman Melville

Mythic white sperm whale captured on film near Jamaica

Type of whale immortalised in Moby-Dick has only been spotted handful of times this century

Philip Hoare

30, Nov, 2021 @4:53 PM

The 20-page rule: how much time should you give a devastatingly boring book?

Novelist Mark Billingham advises readers to angrily launch a book across the room after 20 non-gripping pages – but almost 40% of people will keep going right to the end

12, Oct, 2021 @1:36 PM

‘You think wrong!’: top 10 rants in literature

Some distrust kvetching in print, but writers from Shakespeare to Valerie Solanas show there’s nothing wrong with constructive – and even destructive – criticism

Lucy Ellmann

25, Aug, 2021 @11:00 AM

Moby on fame and regret: ‘I was an out-of-control, utterly entitled drink and drug addict’

He declared his intention to go away for a while after pointed criticism of his second memoir. But now the musician is back with a new album - and a visceral documentary

Tim Jonze

12, Apr, 2021 @5:00 AM

Top 10 Shakespearean books | Robert McCrum

William Shakespeare’s influence on English literature is enormous, but from Dr Johnson to Germaine Greer, some outstanding works have explored his legacy and life story

Robert McCrum

02, Dec, 2020 @11:00 AM

'It had been on my shelf for years': readers share their lockdown reads

Publishers report that coronavirus has boosted sales of long, classic novels. You reveal the great baggy monsters you’ve found the time to tackle

Guardian readers and Rachel Obordo

06, Nov, 2020 @10:00 AM

Nina Stibbe: 'I read a few pages of Moby-Dick and switched to Jaws'

The author on being inspired by Sue Townsend, frightened by Beatrix Potter – and the monologue she wishes she’d written

Nina Stibbe

18, Sep, 2020 @9:00 AM

André Aciman: 'I couldn’t finish Moby-Dick. I lacked the patience'

The author of Call Me By Your Name on laughing out loud at The Pickwick Papers and racing through Enid Blyton

André Aciman

24, Apr, 2020 @9:00 AM

Moby-Dick is a slippery book | Letter

Letter: Philip Hoare offers further insight into sperm whales and ponders Herman Melville’s intentions

Letters

09, Aug, 2019 @4:33 PM

Spermaceti hand rubs in Moby-Dick | Letter

Letter: Peter Eiseman-Renyard clarifies some details about a massage substance in Herman Melville’s novel

Letters

02, Aug, 2019 @4:33 PM

Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: six reasons why Moby-Dick is the novel for our times

The book features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important

Philip Hoare

30, Jul, 2019 @9:00 AM