Friday, February 12th at 7 pm
PHILIP HOARE
author of
The Whale:
In Search of the Giants of the Sea

When author Philip Hoare had nearly finished the research and writing of his new book, The Whale, he got the chance he’d always dreamed of: to swim with whales in the wild. “Its great grey head turned towards me, looking like an upright block of granite, overwhelmingly monumental.” While reading Hoare’s book isn’t quite a frigid swim in the North Atlantic, The Whale is a remarkable and sweeping look at the lives and lore of the graceful giants of the deep.

Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2008 as Leviathan, Hoare was awarded Britain’s most prestigious award for non-fiction writing, the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. This February, Hoare’s masterly work will be available in the United States for the first time.

Hoare takes readers deep into the world of whales, looking at their lives in the ocean as well as their cultural significance and lasting impact. He explores their fascinating physiology and migration habits. He travels to the fabled whaling towns like New Bedford and Nantucket in Massachusetts, and Hull and Whitby in England, once economic hubs that handled untold tons of whale oil, bone and ambergris, and he recreates life on 19th century whaling vessels. Hoare also explores the whale’s literary legacy, primarily through the American classic, Moby-Dick.

Between the science and lore, The Whale also takes on a personal tone. As a young boy, Philip chanced to see a whale in captivity, and the image of that grand animal stayed with him. His life-long fascination eventually culminated in this award-winning work.

"Philip Hoare's writing is quite untrammeled by convention and opens up astonishing views at every turn."
- W.G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn

"Philip Hoare's The Whale is everything you want from a book. It is unpredictable and amusing and informative and original, cavorting between biology, history, travel writing, and memoir with an engaging sense of the subject's charisma."
- Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of Salt and Cod

"This singular, magnificent book inspires both awe and shame -- awe of the whales, shame of the human species that has tried to destroy them. In the end, Hoare's virtuosic sympathy for his subject makes you believe in the better angels of our nature."
- Alex Ross, bestselling author of The Rest is Noise

Philip Hoare is the author of biographies of Stephen Tennant and Noël Coward and the historical studies Wilde's Last Stand, Spike Island, and England's Lost Eden. In 2008, Hoare won the Samuel Johnson Prize for the UK edition of The Whale (titled, Leviathan). He is also the writer and presenter of the BBC documentary The Hunt for Moby-Dick. He lives in Southampton, England.