'Moby-Dick' has a remarkable way of resonating with whatever is going on in the world at that particular moment.

If you live on Nantucket, you can't avoid its history, and 'Moby Dick' is the way most of us get into Nantucket's history.

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

A good leader has to at some point trust those around him; otherwise, nothing constructive is going to get done.

I consider myself a writer who happens to write about history, rather than a historian. I was an English major in college. What I've learned about history is in the field, so to speak. Going into the archives and working with it directly.

A survival tale peels away the niceties and comforts of civilization. Suddenly, all the technology and education in the world means nothing. I think all of us wonder while reading a survival tale, 'What would I have done in this situation? Would I have made it?'