Fresh from its successful Odyssey program last spring, Bristol BookFest will sail into different waters in 2024, with a program on April 5 and 6 devoted to Herman Melville’s 1851 epic of the sea, “Moby-Dick.”

Considered by many the great American novel, “Moby-Dick” is also a classic with Bristol connections, said BookFest co-founder Charles Calhoun. A native New Yorker, the 9-year-old Melville spent a happy summer vacation in 1828 with his aunt and uncle Mary and John D’Wolf in a house still standing on Hope Street.

Uncle John, a world traveler and very successful merchant, told him of an incident in which a sperm whale had, by accident, almost sunk his ship in the North Pacific. D'Wolf is immortalized, by name, in Chapter 45 (“The Affidavit”) of “Moby-Dick.”

It’s also a timely book, Calhoun said. Given our climate crisis, Melville’s reflections on our relationship with nature are more compelling than ever. “I mean, why did we kill whales so cruelly? Because we could make so much money from their oil.”

As Nathaniel Philbrick writes in his new book “Why Read ‘Moby-Dick’?”, the novel embodies “every powerful American archetype as it interweaves creation myths, revenge narratives, folktales and the conflicting impulses to create and to destroy.”

BookFest 2024 is on Friday and Saturday, April 5 and 6, in three historic downtown Bristol locations. Registration will open in January.

Meanwhile, BookFest is developing programs in partnership with Rogers Free Library this winter to help readers ease their way into the 800-page novel – ranging from facilitated reading groups and a film series to a Melville event at a local pub.

BookFest’s Steering Committee, which started this annual public humanities program four years ago, has just added seven new members: Steven Calvert, Allen Clark, Jillian DeLong, Amy de Rham, Elizabeth Hanson, Susan Hibbitt and Lianne Pinheiro. They join founding members Joanna Ziegler, Elizabeth Brito, Rebecca Riley, Elisabeth Lavers, Renee Soto and Calhoun.