The 59-year-old Dubliner’s childhood consisted of Moby Dick and Narnia and many others. “I stole books. I’m probably not allowed to say that,” he laughed.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melvill, I haven’t actually read this one, but I’ve heard such good things I thought I should mention it.

It really covers every single last aspect of whaling -and by every single last aspect of whaling, I mean Every. Single. Aspect.

People are always going on about how hard it is. It’s not that hard. I never understand that. What, because he describes rope and types of whales? I love that stuff.

I remember you were reading - I think it was Moby Dick or something at the time. Some mammoth novel. Are you still as voracious a reader as you were? KRISTEN STEWART: More so. I read more than I used to.

Another epic story colored Jobs' outlook in his adolescence: "Moby Dick," the deeply American novel by Herman Melville. Isaacson draws a connection between Captain Ahab, who's one of the most driven and willful characters in literature, and Jobs. Ahab, like Jobs, did lots of his learning from direct experience, rather than relying on institutions.

Moby Dick is a fascinating book, a book that’s filled with scenes of high drama and dramatic dialogue. The book makes demands on you. The plot is straightforward. The mysterious Captain Ahab – captain of a ship called the Pequod – an egomaniac with a peg leg pursuing his nemesis, the great white whale Moby Dick who took his leg. And he pursues him all the way from the Atlantic around the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. He pursues the whale around both sides of the earth. It’s an abstract goal, nothing concrete or definite. He calls Moby the emperor, sees him as the embodiment of evil. Ahab’s got a wife and child back in Nantucket that he reminisces about now and again. You can anticipate what will happen.