I've been listening to Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea. This is a book that was one of my favorites as a 7th grader. I reread it later, sometime in my early twenties so this is my third journey beneath the seas with Captain Nemo.

This time around the descriptions seem more vivid, the characters perhaps a bit more typecast, but the book has lost little of its hook into my imagination. What's especially nice now is google earth, which allows me to follow Nemo's journey on satellite maps, and wikipedia, which helps me find more information about some of the sea life that is referenced in the novel. For example wikipedia revealed to me that the cachelots that Nemo slaughters (so as to protect a pod of gentler whales) are also called Sperm Whales, and hunt as I might I could find no mention of the undersea tunnel that Nemo uses to escape the Red Sea.

It's interesting too, to compare the description of the Nautilus in the book with the Disney sub so commonly pictured. I found this Nautilus design compendium operated by Michael & Karen Crisafulli.