This guy samurai sword fights. Your list includes Moby dick, which stands out to me as pretty different (much more intense read) than the rest. What'd you get out of it?
I think a lot of people overestimate Moby Dick. It's actually a pretty funny book in many places. There's a fart joke in the first 3 pages!
Still, melville had a lot to say about human nature, abolitionism, philosophy, xenophobia... name a pressing concern of american life in the modern age and you'll find echoes of it here, too.
"For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. "
Still, melville had a lot to say about human nature, abolitionism, philosophy, xenophobia... name a pressing concern of american life in the modern age and you'll find echoes of it here, too.