Herman Melville

Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, the Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms. In this collection of classics, five seminal tales come together to form a picture of America in its youth, but on the cusp of growing up. These stories defined and challenged the standards of American literature, and their influence is immeasurable. Including Nathaniel Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER, Herman Melville's MOBY...

When Ishmael joined the crew of a whaling ship called the Pequod, he was eager for a life of adventure on the high seas. But he didn't know that what he was about to embark on would be the adventure of a lifetime. With Captain Ahab at the helm, Ishmael and his crewmates quickly learned that they weren't simply hunting whales. They were on a quest for the biggest catch there ever was: the great white whale of legend, Moby Dick.

Animal farm (1999, 94 min.): A political satire in which the animals take over running the farm but find their utopian state turning into a dictatorship. Moby Dick (1998, 185 min.): Sailor Ishmael tells the story of Captain Ahab, who sails on a vengeful quest to slay the legendary white whale known as Moby Dick.

Britten's 2-act opera of persecution and injustice aboard a British man o' war, performed in 1988 at the London Coliseum.

Most people associate storms and other big weather with death-with the kind of force that makes each of us wonder about life, and time and the nature of our surroundings. Some people go out looking for bad weather or go to places where they're likely to encounter it. Others have the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, the stories in Storm have more to say than that. They tell us about what happens when people find that...

Few people would want to test their mettle in an ice-encrusted boat with Ernest Shackleton, sail the Straits of Magellan with Joshua Slocum, or watch with Owen Chase as an angry whale sends his ship to the bottom, thousands of miles from the nearest land. But it's quite another thing to read these true accounts while settled into a favorite chair. Shackleton and Chase persevered in the face of travails that would have given even Job pause. Their stoic...