Just the Best Literature

Just the Best Literature

Just the Best Literature inspires you to not only read printed books, but to read only the best books. Besides books, host Dennis Leap will lead discussions on other current literature such as essays and important articles.


Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon continue discussing Chapter 48: “The First Lowering.” This explosive chapter gives insight into the uniting of Ahab’s stowaway crew—believed at one time to be Phantoms—and the legitimate crew of the Pequod.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Chapters 46 through 48. For Chapter 46, Dennis and Grant discuss Melville’s additional revelation of Ahab’s megalomania. In Chapters 47 and 48, Dennis and Grant discuss the shocking introduction and use of Ahab’s powerful phantom whale-killing crew.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Chapters 43 and 44. In Chapter 43, Melville begins to reveal that there is an unknown mysterious crew on board. For Chapter 44, Leap and Turgeon discuss Ahab’s great intelligence and also his mental madness.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Chapter 42: “The Whiteness of the Whale.” This fascinating chapter discusses the elusive qualities of the color white. This color happens to appall Ishmael.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Chapter 41, “Moby Dick,” which gives the history of Moby Dick and Ahab and shows that Ishmael recognizes he is totally under Ahab’s influence.

Host Dennis Leap with special guest Grant Turgeon complete their discussion of Chapter 37, titled “Sunset,” showing how Ahab describes himself as “demonic” and “madness maddened.” They then discuss the soliloquy’s of Starbuck (Chapter 38) and Stubb (Chapter 39) and end the program with a comedic soliloquy of the sailors (Chapter 40) written in the form of a musical. Under Ahab’s trance, the shipmates celebrate the killing of the whale.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon complete their discussion of Chapter 36, “The Quarterdeck,” showing how Ahab successfully completed his plan to hijack the Pequod to satisfy his vengeance against Moby Dick.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Chapters 30 and 31 of Moby Dick: Melville compares Ahab to a Norse king and crafts a humorous tale of Stubb telling Flask about his queer dream of a merman. Dennis and Grant also begin their discussion of Chapter 36, “The Quarterdeck,” in which Ahab initiates his plan to hijack the Pequod for his own dark purpose.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Herman Melville’s well-known and yet most mysterious character, Captain Ahab, from his American classic Moby Dick.

Host Dennis Leap and special guest Grant Turgeon discuss Chapters 26 and 27 of Herman Melville’s American classic Moby Dick. Leap and Turgeon focus on the personalities of the Pequod’s three mates and their assistants, the harpooners.