The story of a man’s obsession with whales, which takes him on a personal, historical and biographical journey – from his childhood to his fascination with Moby-Dick and his excursions whale-watching.
All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed by whales, from the gigantic skeletons in London’s Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals themselves. Whales have a mythical quality – they seem to elide with dark fantasies of sea-serpents and antediluvian monsters that swim in our collective unconscious.
In ‘Leviathan’, Philip Hoare seeks to locate and identify this obsession. What impelled Melville to write ‘Moby-Dick’? After his book in 1851, no one saw whales in quite the same way again.
This book is an investigation into what we know little about – dark, shadowy creatures who swim below the depths, only to surface in a spray of spume. More than the story of the whale, it is also the story of our own obsessions.

Leviathan

Science & Math

HOARE, PHILIP

Mathematics

Fourth Estate

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR

HarperCollins, Publishers

An illuminating exploration of the intersection between life, art and the sea from the award-winning author of Leviathan. 
‘This is a wonderful book. A lyrical journey into the natural and unnatural world … Leading us from the hands of an engraver to the monstrous beauty dwelling in the churning seas’ Patti Smith 
Albrecht Dürer changed the way we saw nature through art. From his prints in 1498 of the plague ridden Apocalypse – the first works mass produced by any artist – to his hyper-real images of animals and plants, his art was a revelation: it showed us who we are but it also foresaw our future. It is a vision that remains startlingly powerful and seductive, even now. 
In Albert & the Whale, Philip Hoare sets out to discover why Dürer's art endures. He encounters medieval alchemists and modernist poets, eccentric emperors and queer soul rebels, ambassadorial whales and enigmatic pop artists. He witnesses the miraculous birth of Dürer's fantastical rhinoceros and his hermaphroditic hare, and he traces the fate of the star-crossed leviathan that the artist pursued. And as the author swims from Europe to America and beyond, these prophetic artists and downed angels provoke awkward questions. What is natural or unnatural? Is art a fatal contract? Or does it in fact have the power to save us?\nWith its wild and watery adventures, its witty accounts of amazing cultural lives and its delight in the fragile beauty of the natural world, Albert & the Whale offers glorious, inspiring insights into a great artist, and his unerring, sometimes disturbing gaze.

Albert and the Whale

Humor & Entertainment

The illustrated biography of 20s and 30s socialite, contemporary of the Mitfords, model for Cecil Beaton and friend of Sassoon, Stephen Tennant.

Serious pleasures: The life of Stephen Tennant

Penguin??Books

From his childhood fascination with the gigantic Natural History Museum model of a blue whale, to his abiding love of Moby-Dick, to his adult encounters with the living animals in the Atlantic Ocean, the acclaimed writer Philip Hoare has been obsessed with whales. The Whale is his unforgettable and moving attempt to explain why these strange and beautiful animals exert such a powerful hold on our imagination.

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

Biological Sciences

Ecco

“Unpredictable and amusing and informative and original, cavorting between biology, history, travel writing, and memoir.”
—Mark Kurlansky
The Whale by Philip Hoare is a enthralling and eye-opening literary leviathan swimming in similar bestselling waters as Cod and The Secret Life of Lobsters. Winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction, The Whale is a lively travelogue through the history, literature, and lore of the king of the sea—the remarkable mammals that we human beings have long been fascinated with, from Moby Dick to Free Willy. Bestselling author and naturalist Bernd Heinrich calls it, “a moving and extraordinary book,” and Hoare’s sparkling account of swimming with these incredible behemoths will delight whale and wildlife aficionados, lovers of the sea and sea stories, as well as the socially and environmentally conscious reader.

Stephen Tennant died intestate in 1987, aged 80, and has become a cult figure. He appears in numerous biographies about the 1920s and 1930s and he was the model for Cedric Hampton in "Love in a Cold Climate" by Nancy Mitford. In his early youth he entertained his friends at his mother, Lady Glenconner's manor house Wilsford Manor in Wiltshire. Here he was photographed by Cecil Beaton to become one of the typical images of 1920s "beautiful" young people. After his 21st birthday, his life went downhill. He suffered from tuberculosis. At this time he became the adored of Siegfried Sassoon and spent his convalescence with him in the Mediterranean. When he returned to Wilsford, Tennant led an indolent existence on his comfortable inhertance and worked for 40 years on his novel "Lascar". He became a recluse, redecorating Wilsford with fishnets, pink satin and golden conch shells. His hair was long and dyed mauve, he wore kaftans and many gilded bangles. This stage of his life is pitilessly described by his niece, Emma Tennant, in her novel "The House of Hospitalities".

Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant

Biographies & Memoirs

To several generations, actor, playwright, songwriter, and filmmaker, Noël Coward (1899-1973) was the very personification of wit, glamour, and elegance. His biographer, Philip Hoare, given unprecedented access to the private papers and correspondence of Coward family members, compatriots, and numerous lovers, has produced the definitive biography of one of the twentieth century's most celebrated and controversial figures. "Philip Hoare's careful research and lucid presentation in his Noël Coward: A Biography adds depth to the picture."-New York Times Book Review "A fascinating, in-depth biography."—Library Journal "Hoare has profiled vividly and in-depth a complex legend who had a talent for creating and recreating both himself and his works."—Publishers Weekly "In the thicket of books about the life and work of Coward, Philip Hoare's stands out as the most well-documented and objective."—Los Angeles Times "[Hoare's] book, like its subject, strives for effortless sophistication, and succeeds."—Newsday "Hoare's retelling of Coward's story [is] the most vivid, insightful, and fascinating so far."—John Lahr, The New Yorker

Noel Coward: A Biography

University of Chicago Press

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR: In Search of the Soul of the Sea

“Every day is an anxiety in my ways of getting to the water. . . . I’ve become so attuned to it, so scared of it, so in love with it that sometimes I can only think by the sea. It is the only place I feel at home.”   Many of us visit the sea. Admire it. Even profess to love it. But very few of us live it. Philip Hoare does. He swims in the sea every day, either off the coast of his native Southampton or his adopted Cape Cod. He watches its daily and seasonal changes. He collects and communes with the wrack—both dead and never living—that it throws up on the shingle. He thinks with, at, through the sea.   All of which should prepare readers: RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR is no ordinary book. It mounts no straight-ahead argument. It hews to no single genre. Instead, like the sea itself, it moves, flows, absorbs, transforms. In its pages we find passages of beautiful nature and travel writing, lyrical memoir, seams of American and English history and much more. We find Thoreau and Melville, Bowie and Byron, John Waters and Virginia Woolf, all linked through a certain refusal to be contained, to be strictly defined—an openness to discovery and change. Running throughout is an air of elegy, a reminder that the sea is an ending, a repository of lost ships, lost people, lost ways of being. It is where we came from; for Hoare, it is where he is going.   “Every swim is a little death,” Hoare writes, “but it is also a reminder that you are alive.” Few books have ever made that knife’s edge so palpable. Read RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR. Let it settle into the seabed of your soul. You’ll never forget it.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

“Every day is an anxiety in my ways of getting to the water. . . . I’ve become so attuned to it, so scared of it, so in love with it that sometimes I can only think by the sea. It is the only place I feel at home.” Many of us visit the sea. Admire it. Even profess to love it. But very few of us live it. Philip Hoare does. He swims in the sea every day, either off the coast of his native Southampton or his adopted Cape Cod. He watches its daily and seasonal changes. He collects and communes with the wrack—both dead and never living—that it throws up on the shingle. He thinks with, at, through the sea. All of which should prepare readers: RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR is no ordinary book. It mounts no straight-ahead argument. It hews to no single genre. Instead, like the sea itself, it moves, flows, absorbs, transforms. In its pages we find passages of beautiful nature and travel writing, lyrical memoir, seams of American and English history and much more. We find Thoreau and Melville, Bowie and Byron, John Waters and Virginia Woolf, all linked through a certain refusal to be contained, to be strictly defined—an openness to discovery and change. Running throughout is an air of elegy, a reminder that the sea is an ending, a repository of lost ships, lost people, lost ways of being. It is where we came from; for Hoare, it is where he is going. “Every swim is a little death,” Hoare writes, “but it is also a reminder that you are alive.” Few books have ever made that knife’s edge so palpable. Read RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR. Let it settle into the seabed of your soul. You’ll never forget it.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HOARE, PHILIP. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by HOARE, PHILIP

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HOARE, PHILIP. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Leviathan

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR

Albert and the Whale

Serious pleasures: The life of Stephen Tennant

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant

Noel Coward: A Biography

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR: In Search of the Soul of the Sea

RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR: In Search of the Soul of the Sea