The Perfect Storm is reminiscent of Melville’s great Moby Dick, not only in that it centers on the sea and the people who live and work there, but also in the sheer number of details and tangents and the breadth it covers. Ranging from meteorology to fishing techniques to aircraft designs to rescue training to marine engineering, the book is a compelling account of an enormous storm and its effects on many people’s lives. I have yet to see the movie, but it seems like it would be a difficult book to translate to that medium while preserving the book’s flavor, since there’s so much background material included to flesh out the story. Another one for the “to-read” list.