Friends of Montclair Library

“The Tepid Tears of Moby-Dick” print by Angela Cockayne, a fundraiser for Whale & Dolphin Conservation

Today is the 161st anniversary of the publication of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, or, The White Whale. While the book debuted to mixed or even negative reviews, today it’s considered a classic, and you can find several versions of it in the Montclair library’s Classics section, or as an e-book.

Or click on over to the Moby-Dick Big Read to hear “each of its 135 chapters read out aloud, by a mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, to be broadcast online in a sequence of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible.”

For a different take on the story, check out Ahab’s Wife, or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel by Sena Jeter Naslund.