In the Heart of the Sea by Nat Philbrick
This is the intriguing true story of the Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship destroyed by an enraged whale, the inspiration for Moby Dick. You will want to keep driving so you can keep listening to this involving survival story. For three months the 20 men who escaped the Essex drifted in three smaller open boats, enduring squalls, attacks by sharks and another whale, starvation, dehydration, madness, and despair while sailing almost 4,500 nautical miles across the Pacific. In the Heart of the Sea also sheds light on the sociology of Nantucket, an island basically run by women whose husbands were off on 3 year whaling expeditions, the effects of starvation on the human body, the history of cannibalism, and the life of a sailor aboard a whaling ship. Listen and find out why black sailors in starvation situations almost invariably perished first.