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vunderba 6 hours ago

> Moby-Dick remains perhaps the best reading experience of my life.

I sometimes half-jokingly maintain that Moby-Dick was really written as part of an early BOOK-IT [1] reading incentive program to improve literacy among whalers by disguising a novel as a cetological guidebook.

There are entire chapters devoted to the harpooning process, sperm whale anatomy, maritime legal disputes over whale harvesting, etc.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It!

quercusa 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Moby-Dick really is a great book. If you want a dolphin-sized taste of Melville, try Billy Budd.

hearsathought 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not unless elementary kids were whalers back then.

> [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It!

Talk about nostalgia. Haven't thought about pizza hut and book it in ages.

NoMoreNicksLeft 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You suckered me into reading the article by mentioning Moby Dick.