Books & Looks: Real Books for Real Readers was started as a literary podcast to supplement Blaine Desantis’ website, ViewsOnBooks.com, and expand into audio and video interviews with authors.
With Books & Looks, Blaine’s goal is to focus on real books that real people will read. At least half of the books he reviews are either new authors or unknown authors that many in the general public are unaware of. After a segment reviewing books or interviewing authors, Blaine ends each episode with a discussion of the movies and TV shows he is currently watching.
Learn more about BookTrib’s partner and Blaine at ViewsOnBooks.com.
This Week’s Episode
In July 1831, the whaleship Mentor sailed out of New Bedford Harbor with 22 men aboard, hoping to strike it rich hunting sperm whales in the Pacific. They never made it. Caught in a raging storm, the ship smashed into the remote island chain of Palau — and within hours, half the crew was dead.
What followed is one of the most harrowing survival stories in American maritime history. In this episode, host Blaine DeSantis sits down with New York Times bestselling author Eric J. Dolin to unravel what happened to the men who lived: hostage negotiations demanding 200 guns, years of forced labor and starvation on a tiny island just one mile long, forced tattooing meant to absorb the castaways into island culture, daring escapes aboard passing ships, and a naval rescue mission ordered by President Andrew Jackson himself.
Along the way, Dolin pulls back the curtain on the golden age of American whaling — the stench you could smell before you saw the ship, the teenage “green hands” who’d never been to sea, and why most whalemen came home with almost nothing to show for years of brutal work. He also shares how he pieced together this forgotten story from logbooks, journals, Palauan oral histories, and more than 100 rare illustrations from archives around the world.
Only 7 of the 22 men ever made it home. This is their story.
Listen to the latest episode of Books & Looks:
