"The ship Pequod, too, was a vestige of an earlier phase of the whaling industry: "She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her." She was a ship trophied by past hunts, and named after "a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians, now extinct as the ancient Medes." Matt Kish's portrait of the Pequod evokes its inimitability and intricacy, but Melville's own image is at least as fantastic."

"Honesty and integrity, it appears to me, are watch-words of literary blogging, even when I don’t necessarily agree with a review or a point or anything else or don’tmakemecomeoverthereandstartsomething. Sometimes I just can’t help myself and I have to stick my oar in. But blogs are all about discussion, at their best, and people need to feel free to say what they want and also have an idea who they’re saying it to, hence me putting my hand up and saying “I work at Penguin, guv.” "