Staff Picks
Past and present Whistlestoppers have a fascinating diversity of taste in books, as you may deduce from a browse in all our recommendations. If you are curious about an individual staffer's picks, click the names below. I emphasize to them that all literature is fair game, not just current or trendy titles. We try to stock everything they would like to sell by hand.
Moby-Dick or The Whale
Moby-Dick or The Whale
First published in 1851, Herman Melville’s masterpiece is, in Elizabeth Hardwick’s words, “the greatest novel in American literature.” The saga of Captain Ahab and his monomaniacal pursuit of the white whale remains a peerless adventure story but one full of mythic grandeur, poetic majesty, and symbolic power. Filtered through the consciousness of the novel’s narrator, Ishmael, Moby-Dick draws us into a universe full of fascinating characters and stories, from the noble cannibal Queequeg to the natural history of whales, while reaching existential depths that excite debate and contemplation to this day.