Setting Sail this Evening

For many years now Adelaida and I have read a book together every Summer, mostly novels, sometimes biographies.
In this way we have read authors as diverse as Kafka, Conrad, Dostoyevsky, Musil and Joyce to name a few.
It is always a pleasure as it gives us so much to talk about because we read so differently and pick up on different nuances.
This summer we have chosen "Moby Dick or The Whale” as our book, written by Herman Melville and published in 1851.
The novel was a complete flop when published and most of the original copies burned in a warehouse fire. It did not become well known until the 1930’s.

We both tend to underline our books and add marginalia, so we both read our own copies. No Kindles in our house!
I won’t be reading the collectors edition in the photo, but an old marked one I have read several times before.


"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.”
Herman Melville