In the Heart of the Sea
The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
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In the Heart of the Sea
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Narrated by:
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Edward Herrmann
About this listen
National Book Award winner
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the 19th century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the 20th. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.
Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents, including a long-lost account written by the ship's cabin boy, and penetrating details about whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon.
©2000 Nathaniel Philbrick (P)2000 Penguin AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Fascinating...One of our country's great adventure stories...when it comes to extremes, In the Heart of the Sea is right there." (The Wall Street Journal)
"A book that gets in your bones...Philbrick has created an eerie thriller from a centuries old tale....Scrupulously researched and eloquently written...it would have earned Melville's admiration." (The New York Times Book Review)
"[Told] with verve and authenticity...a classic tale of the sea." (San Francisco Chronicle)
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 169
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Story4 out of 5 stars 125
Commanded by Captain Howes Norris, the Sharon headed for the whaling grounds of the northwestern Pacific. At Pohnpei Island, 12 men from the Sharon deserted the ship, leaving her critically shorthanded. After steering for New Zealand to recruit more crew, the men on lookout raised a school of sperm whales. Two boats gave chase, each with a crew of six. Five men were left on board the Sharon: Norris, three pacific Islanders, and a Portuguese boy named Manuel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love this author.
- By David H. on 07-15-17
By: Joan Druett
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Sea of Glory
- America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 626
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 467
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 471
America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his best-selling In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen - the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good solid voyage of discovery
- By Ken Sundermeyer on 06-18-05
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Farther Than Any Man
- The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook
- By: Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 391
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 339
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 338
In the annals of seafaring and exploration, there is one name that immediately evokes visions of the open ocean, billowing sails, visiting strange, exotic lands previously uncharted, and civilizations never before encountered - Captain James Cook. Full of realistic action, lush descriptions of places and events, and fascinating historical characters such as King George III and the soon-to-be-notorious Master William Bligh, Dugard's gripping account of the life and death of Captain James Cook is a thrilling story of a discoverer hell-bent on going farther than any man.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Sloppy History
- By Kyle P. Dalton on 04-06-18
By: Martin Dugard
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Batavia
- By: Peter FitzSimons
- Narrated by: Richard Aspel
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 551
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 484
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 483
The story begins in 1629, when the pride of the Dutch East India Company, the Batavia, is on its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to leave Holland. The magnificent ship is already boiling over with a mutinous plot that is just about to break into the open when, just off the coast of Western Australia, it strikes an unseen reef in the middle of the night.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Disaster, Mutiny, Murder, Survival
- By Todd on 02-07-13
By: Peter FitzSimons
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The Last Voyage of Columbus
- Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition
- By: Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Simon Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
The epic, never-before-told story of Columbus's final, and perhaps greatest, journey to the New World. The final voyage of Christopher Columbus was by far his most dangerous, unexpected, exhilarating, and consequential. It was, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Samuel Eliot Morison put it, "a story of adventure which imagination could hardly invent; a struggle between man and the elements, in which the most splendid manifestations of devotion, loyalty and courage are mingled with the vilest human passions."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant!
- By David on 09-11-05
By: Martin Dugard
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Island of the Blue Foxes
- Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 217
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 180
The story of the world's largest, longest, and best-financed scientific expedition of all time, triumphantly successful, gruesomely tragic, and never before fully told. The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Vivid History of Russia's First Contact In Alaska
- By Neil Ring on 09-01-18
By: Stephen R. Bown
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Last Flag Down
- The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship
- By: John Baldwin, Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider's name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a 24-year-old warrior.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good all around
- By Rob on 01-19-08
By: John Baldwin, and others
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Erebus
- One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story5 out of 5 stars 95
Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation - a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared into the depths of the sea for more than 150 years. It was rediscovered under the arctic waters in 2014.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engrossing story
- By Anonymous User on 10-01-24
By: Michael Palin
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Leviathan
- The History of Whaling in America
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 245
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 165
Here is the epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales. This absorbing history demonstrates that few things can capture the sheer danger and desperation of men on the deep sea as dramatically as whaling. This sweeping social and economic history provides rich and often fantastic accounts of the men themselves, who mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, scrimshawed, and recorded their experiences in journals and memoirs.
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4 out of 5 stars
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NOT JUST BLUBBER
- By Jesse on 08-06-07
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Mutiny on the Bounty
- By: Peter FitzSimons
- Narrated by: Michael Carman
- Length: 22 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 926
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 807
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Story5 out of 5 stars 803
The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave.
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5 out of 5 stars
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You don't know the whole story.
- By Justin Sluyter on 05-01-19
By: Peter FitzSimons
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Captain James Cook
- By: Rob Mundle
- Narrated by: Paul English
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
Captain James Cook is one of the greatest maritime explorers of all time. Over three remarkable voyages of discovery into the Pacific in the latter part of the 18th century, Cook unravelled the oldest mystery surrounding the existence of Terra Australis Incognita - the Great South Land. He became the first explorer to circumnavigate New Zealand and establish that it was two main islands; discover the Hawaiian Islands for the British Empire; and left an enduring legacy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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High school history text?
- By peter on 08-31-22
By: Rob Mundle
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In the Kingdom of Ice
- The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,467
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,149
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,143
In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: The North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever." The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Superb tale that unravels at an iceburg's pace
- By Mel on 03-19-15
By: Hampton Sides
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Barrow's Boys
- By: Fergus Fleming
- Narrated by: James Gillies
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Barrow's Boys is a spellbinding account of perilous journeys to uncharted areas under the most challenging conditions. Fergus Fleming captures the passion for exploration that led a band of men into situations that would humble today's bravest adventurers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow
- By Robert B. Golson on 07-05-17
By: Fergus Fleming
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Born to Be Hanged
- The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune
- By: Keith Thomson
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 320
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 272
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 272
The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than 300 daring, hardened pirates—a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers—gather on a remote Caribbean island. The plan: to wreak havoc on the Pacific coastline, raiding cities, mines, and merchant ships. The booty: the bright gleam of Spanish gold and the chance to become a legend. So begins one of the greatest piratical adventures of the era—a story not given its full due until now.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating tale of 17th Piracy in the Americas
- By Xmeromotu on 07-11-22
By: Keith Thomson
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Sailing Alone Around the World
- By: Joshua Slocum
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 204
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
Joshua Slocum was believed to be the first man to sail single-handed around the world. After a distinguished career, where he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Joshua Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdad, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A REMARKABLE MAN
- By Rod on 05-03-06
By: Joshua Slocum
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Adrift
- A True Story of Tragedy on the Icy Atlantic and the One Who Lived to Tell About It
- By: Brian Murphy, Toula Vlahou
- Narrated by: Dan Warren
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than 100 passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly, an iceberg tore the ship asunder, and five lifeboats were lowered. As four lifeboats drifted into the fog and icy water, never to be heard from again, the last boat wrenched away from the sinking ship with a few blankets, some water and biscuits, and 13 souls. Only one would survive. This is his story.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engrossing
- By Trish on 04-20-22
By: Brian Murphy, and others
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Over the Edge of the World
- Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe
- By: Laurence Bergreen
- Narrated by: Laurence Bergreen
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 853
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 638
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 638
In 1519 Magellan and his fleet of five ships set sail from Seville, Spain, to discover a water route to the fabled Spice Islands in Indonesia, where the most sought-after commodities (cloves, pepper, and nutmeg) flourished. Three years later, a handful of survivors returned with an abundance of spices from their intended destination, but with just one ship carrying 18 emaciated men. During their remarkable voyage around the world the crew endured starvation, disease, mutiny, and torture. Many men died, including Magellan, who was violently killed in a fierce battle.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The Reading IS an Issue
- By mcbeene on 12-26-05
What listeners say about In the Heart of the Sea
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Brett T Durbin
- 01-29-20
Amazing telling of a fantastic story!
The happenings of this incredible story which inspired Herman Melville's great classic are wonderfully told in the voice of a great artist in this audiobook. A supreme listing experience, I wish every audiobook I listened to were this great!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Terri mitchell
- 08-27-15
Excellent
What made the experience of listening to In the Heart of the Sea the most enjoyable?
Well recorded. We listened to it while driving from Maryland to North Carolina. The story provoked much conversation.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- JIM ROD
- 03-27-19
Awestruck
As a child, we heard about a ships crew that were lost at sea & resorted to hideous cannibalism to survive.
In great detail, this is it. Great performance of difficult material.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Richelle
- 01-23-13
unreal
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. Great story of human spirit
What three words best describe Edward Herrmann’s performance?
Great voice
Any additional comments?
I did not care for music, Sometimes it played as story went on.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Susi Paulina
- 05-07-15
It was short and nice listen
I did not realize this was a abridged version. I listened to it and it was over quickly. A quick survival story that is not easily known, Philbrick uses rare journal to create a real vision of the Essex sinking. I wish it had been longer.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Rachel
- 10-17-17
Moby-Dick Without All That Riveting Whale Taxonomy
This book has it all: shipwrecks, sharks, and cannibalism. And it’s all true! The Essex is the whaleship that inspired Herman Melville’s classic (and one of my favorite books), Moby-Dick, and its real-life tale is stranger than fiction. After an 80 ton sperm whale repeatedly rammed and sank their ship, 20 crew members were left stranded in three tiny boats in the middle of the ocean. Spoiler: not everyone makes it.
This book is a doozy of a page-turner, and Philbrick does an incredible job digging into all of the nuances of life before, during, and after surviving such a mind-boggling tragedy. In the Heart of the Sea is a perfect companion piece to Moby-Dick, or a great stand-alone read for anyone who’s ever wanted to read Moby-Dick but can do without all that riveting whale taxonomy.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Leslie
- 02-09-15
Amazing
Great listen!
One of the best stories I've heard. Recommend the audible "unbroken" if you like this. The narrator is perfect for this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rosy
- 03-20-21
The Best
I have read this book many times, and recently listened to it to refresh my memory for a YouTube Channel I do reviewing sailing movies (Captain Pedantic). The book is exceptional, as is Richard Hermann's reading of it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Victoria Thompson
- 11-06-20
Great Historical Story and Narration
I started reading this book, and later saw I had audible credits and decided to listen to it. I am
So glad I did !! The story of the Essex and it’s crew inspired Melville to write Moby Dick.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Vincent
- 12-10-08
Very Interesting
I bought this one on a whim not having much to do with or knowledge of Nantuckett or whaling. I found it very captivating and quite entertaining. The historical accounts of the surviving crew members and Nantuckett in general was a great touch to the main portion of the book. Made me want to visit the museum.
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4 people found this helpful