Fall Books to Read Before the Movies Come Out

If you read Moby Dick wishing Herman Melville would cut to the chase, well, here's the chase: Nathaniel Philbrick's 2000 National Book Award-winning book tells the story of the crew of the Essex, whose perilous 1820 journey inspired the climactic chapters of the novel. Ron Howard has turned the book into a seafaring epic starring a stone-face and muscular Chris Hemsworth—which may be as irresistible as a holiday movie without the aliens or spacecraft gets (look for it December 11). Philbrick, however, manages both to capture the drama of the ill-fated Essex and to reveal the peculiar—and slightly insane—culture of Nantucket whalers that inspired such wild journeys in the first place.