Every year, for the last 30 years, hundreds of people from everywhere show up in New Bedford to celebrate the great American novel, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

How do they celebrate? They take turns reading the book for twenty-five straight hours.

Welcome to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. It’s the weekend of January 3rd, 2026. Folks are gathered in the Bourne Building of the museum where you will find a half-sized duplicate of the whaling ship. Lagoda.

More than a hundred different people, sometimes more than two hundred, will take turns reading the novel. This year, the first reader was Massachusetts Poet Laureate Regie Gibson.

The experience is quite sublime and fascinating. If you’re a fan of the book you need to see it. Even if you haven’t read it, this is still one of those things to experience at least once in your life.

Follow on YouTube

Follow on Bluesky