The blue whale is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whale parvorder, Mysticeti. At up to 29.9 metres (98 ft) in length and with a maximum recorded weight of 173 tonnes, it is the largest animal known to have ever existed.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, the work's genre classifications range from late Romantic to early Symbolist. Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
Charles Michael Palahniuk is an American novelist and freelance journalist, who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He is the author of the award-winning novel Fight Club, which also was made into a popular film of the same name.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the third in the Harry Potter series. The book follows Harry Potter, a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner from Azkaban who they believe is one of Lord Voldemort's old allies.
Dall's porpoise is a species of porpoise found only in the North Pacific. It came to worldwide attention in the 1970s when it was disclosed for the first time to the public that salmon fishing trawls were killing thousands of Dall's porpoises and other cetaceans each year by accidentally capturing them in their nets. Dall's porpoise is the only member of the genus Phocoenoides. It was named after American naturalist W. H. Dall.
Cetacean stranding, commonly known as beaching, is a phenomenon in which whales and dolphins strand themselves on land, usually on a beach. Beached whales often die due to dehydration, collapsing under their own weight, or drowning when high tide covers the blowhole. Several explanations for why cetaceans strand themselves have been proposed, but none have so far been universally accepted as a definitive reason for the behavior. A link between mass beaching of beaked whales and the use of mid-frequency active sonar however have been found.
A book discussion club is a group of people who meet to discuss a book or books that they have read and express their opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. It is more often called simply a book club, a term that is also used to describe a book sales club, which can cause confusion. Other frequently used terms to describe a book discussion club include reading group, book group, and book discussion group. Book discussion clubs may meet in private homes, libraries, bookstores, online forums, pubs, and in cafés or restaurants over meals or drinks.
Louis Herman was an American marine biologist. He was a researcher of dolphin sensory abilities, dolphin cognition, and humpback whales. He was professor in the Department of Psychology and a cooperating faculty member of the Department of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He founded the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory (KBMML) in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1970 to study bottlenose dolphin perception, cognition, and communication. In 1975, he pioneered the scientific study of the annual winter migration of humpback whales into Hawaiian waters. Together with Adam Pack, he founded The Dolphin Institute in 1993, a non-profit corporation dedicated to dolphins and whales through education, research, and conservation.
"The Marine Biologist" is the 78th episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld. It is the 14th episode of the fifth season. It was originally broadcast on NBC on February 10, 1994. Jerry Seinfeld considers the episode to be one of his favorites.
First Among Sequels is an alternate history, comic fantasy novel by the British author Jasper Fforde. It is the fifth Thursday Next novel, first published on 5 July 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on 24 July 2007 in the United States. The novel follows the continuing adventures of Thursday Next in her fictional version of Swindon and in the BookWorld, and is the first of a new four-part Nextian series.
William March was an American writer of psychological fiction and a highly decorated US Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was praised by critics but never attained great popularity.
Danger on Deception Island is the ninth installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on a book entitled Whispers in the Fog (1999).
The Swarm is a science fiction novel by German author Frank Schätzing. It was first published in Germany and Austria in 2004 and soon became a bestseller.
The Battle of the Labyrinth is an American fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology written by Rick Riordan. It is the fourth novel in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. The novel was first published in the United States on May 6, 2008 by Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide. It has been published in hardcover, audiobook, ebook, and large-print editions. To date, The Battle of the Labyrinth has been translated into 29 languages from its original English.
Delta and Dawn, also known as the Delta whales, were two humpback whales, a mother and her calf, which entered San Francisco Bay in early May 2007. They swam up the Sacramento River approximately 90 nautical miles (170 km) upstream from the Golden Gate, about 20 miles (32 km) further inland than Humphrey the Whale had gone two decades earlier. Under the Endangered Species Act, California state officials were required to rescue the animals. Their journey was thought to be longest freshwater incursion by humpback whales.
Journey to the End of the Whale (2005) is a novel by John David Morley, a book that almost killed its author in the making.
The Fault in Our Stars, published in January 2012, is the sixth novel by author John Green. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, in which the nobleman Cassius says to Brutus: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The story is narrated by Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl with thyroid cancer that has affected her lungs. Hazel is forced by her parents to attend a support group where she subsequently meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee. A feature film adaptation of the novel directed by Josh Boone and starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Nat Wolff was released on June 6, 2014. Both the book and its film adaptation were met with strong critical and commercial success.
Merry Christmas, Alex Cross is the 19th novel in the Alex Cross series. Detective Alex Cross is called out on Christmas Eve to deal with a hostage situation that has spiraled out of control. Released on November 12, 2012, the novel was well received by fans and critics alike. However, its commercial success was somewhat lukewarm in comparison to past installments, peaking at #2 and #3 on the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists, respectively.
Annihilation is a 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer. It is the first in a series of three books called the Southern Reach Trilogy. The book describes a team of four women who set out into an area known as Area X. The area is abandoned and cut off from the rest of civilization. They are the 12th expedition. The other expeditions have been fraught with disappearances, suicides, aggressive cancers, and mental trauma. The novel won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for best novel.
