Just had wonderful event at the Barr Library at the Fort Knox army base. Some of the best questions of the tour. Looking forward to an evening in Louisville before heading to Denver and one of my favorite bookstores, The Tattered Cover.
Have arrived at Traverse City, Michigan, after a terrific event at the Philadelphia Free Public Library. I’m looking forward to being part of the National Writer Series held at the Traverse City Opera House and being interviewed by Rich Fahle with books provided by Horizon Books. My son Ethan spent two summers at the Interlochen Music Camp and it’s great to be back on Lake Michigan. Then it’s on to Politics and Prose in Washington, DC, followed by Pittsburgh.
The view from Traverse City.
I just landed in Boston after a great interview with Diane Rehm. I’m looking forward to my event on Wednesday at the Coolidge Theatre in Brookline. A great way to begin the Bunker Hill tour.
Boston Common on a beautiful spring day.
Wess Connally of Books, Lines and Thinkers
Nat with his purchases
My upcoming book BUNKER HILL: A CITY, A SIEGE, A REVOLUTION (due out April 30) focuses on one of the great unsung heroes of Revolutionary Boston: Dr. Joseph Warren. Warren was not only president of the Provincial Congress and a major general; he was the one who ordered Paul Revere to alert the countryside that the British were headed for Concord. If he hadn’t been killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Warren might have been one of the Founding Fathers we revere today. Here’s a picture I took of a statue of Warren that’s in the Lodge of the Bunker Hill Monument.
Statue of Joseph Warren at the Lodge of the Bunker Hill Monument
In today’s post on his terrific blog Boston 1775, J.L. Bell proposes that a statue of Warren that’s presently located at the Roxbury Latin School be relocated to the site of Warren’s home, which happens to be smack dab on Government Center in downtown Boston.
It’s an intriguing idea and would bring some much deserved attention to a historical figure who deserves to be better known, particularly in Boston.
The Nantucket Historical Association soliciting for my replacement
As it turns out, the town of Chatham on Cape Cod and I share the same birthday of June 11. On Monday, I was honored to give the keynote address at the town’s 300th anniversary celebration.
In the Whit Tileston Band Stand in Kate Gould Park on Main Street in Chatham, MA
In the meantime, I’m hard at work on my book about Boston and the Revolution, and looking forward to Nantucket’s first Book Festival this weekend. More to come!
One of my favorite research institutions is the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded by the newspaperman Isaiah Thomas (whose colonial-era printing press is on display), the AAS contains terrific collections of early American historical documents and artifacts. The AAS was a big help to me when I was researching Mayflower, and I’ve already spent considerable time there with my current project about Boston and the American Revolution. The AAS is presently putting together an orientation film, and last week I was interviewed about the unique pleasures of conducting research in the organization’s dome-topped reading room.
On set at the AAS, ready for my close-up.
The highlight was getting the chance to read Isaiah Thomas’s rather fevered account of the fighting at Lexington and Concord in The Massachusetts Spy. I was also able to examine a copy of the depositions taken from the American participants in the battle—another treasure among many at the AAS.
Here is a great blog post from Phil Roosevelt, the Deputy Managing Editor of Barron’s. He attended the recent Moby-Dick marathon on Nantucket, then e-mailed me from the ferry ride home to ask why investors should read Melville’s classic.
And some good news for Why Read Moby-Dick?–The audiobook earned a place on the 2012 Listen List for Outstanding Audiobook Narration from the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. See the full list here.
Since Why Read Moby-Dick? came out in October, many readers have asked me which of the 135 chapters of Melville’s masterpiece is my favorite. Even before I moved to my current island home 25 years ago, it was Chapter 14, simply titled “Nantucket.” It’s a five-paragraph prose poem that transforms a fifty square mile sandbank into a mythic launching pad of American global ambition. As a historian, I’m in absolute awe of how Melville adapted a host of diverse sources—Wampanoag oral tradition, a history of Nantucket by Obed Macy, Edmund Burke’s famous speech “Conciliation with the Colonies,” and much more—into a lyrical paean to the Nantucket’s epic whaling heritage. Last week I had a great evening recording Chapter 14 at Nick and Victor Ferrantella’s Garden Rock Studios here on Nantucket. On Saturday January 21, 2011, the Nantucket Atheneum will be hosting the island’s first Moby-Dick Marathon Reading. Beginning in the Atheneum’s Great Hall at noon, it’s projected to last about 25 hours, with Nantucketers of all varieties volunteering to read from the novel. It’s set to end around 1 pm on Sunday the 22nd, and suitably enough, quahog chowder will be served. As you might have guessed, I’ll be reading Chapter 14.
Click here to listen to my reading of Chapter 14: Moby Dick CH. 14mp3
