Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851). This sweeping saga of obsession, vanity, and vengeance at sea can be read as a harrowing parable, a gripping adventure story, or a semiscientific chronicle of the whaling industry. No matter, the book rewards patient readers with some of fiction’s most memorable characters, from mad Captain Ahab to the titular white whale that crippled him, from the honorable pagan Queequeg to our insightful narrator/surrogate (“Call me”) Ishmael, to that hell-bent vessel itself, the Pequod.
Total Points: 128 (PA 8) (RB 9) (JB 6) (AB 3) (BMC 4) (MC 7) (DAD 7) (BEE 1) (JH 7) (JHUMP 10) (AHas 3) (TLeClair 8) (JI 8) (NM 4) (BAM 2) (PM 10) (RM 6) (JCO 2) (RPow 1) (FP 4) (IR 1) (RRash 7) (LDR 2) (SY 8)