Two Guys Read Moby-Dick

Steve Chandler, Terrence N. Hill
Robert D. Reed Publishers (2006)
ISBN 1931741638
Reviewed by April Sullivan for Reader Views (11/06)

“Moby Dick” is considered the great American novel.  It’s one of those books that I always felt like I should read, but never got around to.  It seems I am not alone in this.  This book, “Two Guys Read Moby-Dick,” by Steve Chandler and Terrence N. Hill, is just what the title says. Two old friends, who were assigned to read Moby Dick in high school, but never did, decide to read it forty years later and correspond to each other during the process.

So why does a pile of letters between two guys, loosely based on a theme, make a good book, or even a book at all?  First of all, Steve Chandler and Terence N. Hill are not just two guys, they are both avid readers and they are both writers who know how to write well.  They are smart, witty, and interesting. 

Second, this is a great way to get through a tough old book such as “Moby Dick.”  It is a long-distance book group of two.  They are reading it so we don’t have to.  Steve and Terry struggled through all 135 chapters on whales and more whales.  Good for them and good for me!

Third, it is not about Moby Dick.  It is about friendship.  And that makes a good story.  The book “Two Guys Read Moby-Dick” goes way beyond the topic of the great white whale.  Steve and Terry talk a lot about other subjects such as baseball, death, weight loss, old times, and other books.  These are your standard musings of two men in their mid-fifties who have known each other forever.

It is hard to say who I would recommend this book to.  Is it for those who have read “Moby Dick,” or those who have not?  Is it even really about Moby Dick?  This book is more of a small surprise wrapped inside the idea of a book about reading “Moby Dick.”  So it is for anyone who likes surprises.

I really liked the idea behind “Two Guys Read Moby-Dick.”  Two guys who I have never even heard of got me to read their book instead of Herman Melville’s classic.  Thanks to them, I no longer feel the urge to read “Moby Dick.”  But I am glad I got to know Steve and Terry through their reading of it.

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