Marathon Reading of "Moby-Dick" Returns To Sag Harbor | Newsday | By Stacy Altherr

It'll be a whale of a weekend.

A marathon reading of the American classic "Moby-Dick" is returning to a Sag Harbor bookstore after more than a decade long hiatus.

The former whaling village is mentioned in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, so it's an apt setting for the reading, organized by Canio's Books, a longtime independent bookstore in the village.

The idea was originally sparked in the 1980s after Canio Pavone, founder and past owner of the shop, had a conversation with a friend about a marathon reading of James Joyce's "Ulysses" on WBAI, a New York radio station.

"We were already doing a lot of readings," says Pavone, 80. "I said, 'Let's do something that hasn't been done.' So, with Sag Harbor being a whaling town, I thought of 'Moby-Dick.'"