Also, In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. It is a non-fiction account of the wreck of the Essex, a Nantucket whaler, that was inexplicably "stove by a whale", and lost at sea - an unheard of occurrence at the time. The crew was forced to survive in open boats for weeks, and resorted to cannibalism.

This was the story that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick.

The book is both a survival story and an investigation of the Nantucket whaling industry and whaling in general, as well as the social and economic background.