Recommendations based on Master and Commanderby Patrick O'Brian

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Mauritius Command

    by Patrick O'Brian
    Captain Jack Aubrey leads the Royal Navy in a battle against the French in the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars.

    Jack Aubrey and Sophia Williams are married and the parents of twin girls. They live at Ashgrove Cottage on his half-pay, not enough to support fellow navy men in the household. Sophia's mother has ... (Wikipedia)

  2. The Far Side of the World

    by Patrick O'Brian
    A thrilling journey of naval warfare and exploration in the early 19th century.

    Aubrey meets Admiral Ives, now in Gibraltar, who is pleased with the last mission of HMS Surprise , despite Aubrey's negative report. Mr Yarrow will rephrase it to make the success clearer to the ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Desolation Island

    by Patrick O'Brian
    Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin are stranded on a remote island, facing harsh conditions and a dangerous enemy.

    Jack Aubrey, having recovered financially in, The Mauritius Command, , expands his house, pays off his mother-in-law's debts, and his wife is no longer pinching pennies. His household staffed with ... (Wikipedia)

  4. Sharpe's Tiger

    by Bernard Cornwell
    A young British officer fights against the forces of the Indian ruler Tippoo Sultan during the 1799 siege of Seringapatam.

    Richard Sharpe is a private in the 33rd Regiment of Foot in the British army. The British invade Mysore and advance on the Tippoo Sultan 's capital city of Seringapatam . Sharpe is contemplating ... (Wikipedia)

  5. The Last Kingdom

    by Bernard Cornwell
    Epic tale of a Saxon warrior's quest to reclaim his birthright and unite the divided kingdom.

    A collection of the first four installments of Bernard Cornwell’s bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, “like Game of Thrones, but real” (,The Observer, London)—the ... (Barnes & Noble)

  6. Cold Mountain

    by Charles Frazier
    A Confederate soldier's homecoming journey, filled with danger and adventure.

    The novel opens in a Confederate military hospital near Raleigh, North Carolina , where Inman is recovering from battle wounds during the American Civil War . The soldier is tired of fighting for a ... (Wikipedia)

  7. Sharpe's Triumph

    by Bernard Cornwell
    A tale of heroism, as a British soldier risks his life to save a young woman from the French.

    Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803 India, 1803. Sergeant Richard Sharpe witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an English officer who has defected from the East India Company ... (Goodreads)

  8. Flashman

    by George MacDonald Fraser
    A cowardly British soldier's misadventures as he navigates the volatile world of 19th century imperial politics.

    Coward, scoundrel, lover and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners ... (Goodreads)

  9. The Killer Angels

    by Michael Shaara
    A gripping story of the Battle of Gettysburg, told through the eyes of the soldiers on both sides.

    Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain , one of the major characters, remembers reciting to his father a speech from, Hamlet, : "What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!" Sgt. Buster Kilrain ... (Wikipedia)

  10. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

    by John le Carré
    A retired spy is called back into action to uncover a mole in the British Secret Service.

    Control , chief of the Circus, suspects one of the five senior intelligence officers at the Circus to be a long-standing Soviet mole and assigns code names with the intention that should his agent ... (Wikipedia)

  11. War and Peace

    by Leo Tolstoy
    Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.

    The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Beat to Quarters

    by C.S. Forester
    Naval officer's daring mission to track down a powerful enemy warship.

    In June 1808, Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Lydia , with orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca ) and supply a local landowner, Don ... (Wikipedia)

  13. The Hunt for Red October

    by Tom Clancy
    A thrilling adventure of a submarine captain's race against the clock in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

    During the Cold War ,(the story must be set in 1982, according to the days assigned to the dates in the novel, e.g. Dec. 17 was a Friday only in 1982,1976 and 1971 ) Marko Ramius, a Soviet Navy ... (Wikipedia)

  14. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower

    by C.S. Forester
    Follow the adventures of Horatio Hornblower, a young midshipman in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.

    This novel is episodic, with named chapters (that begin with Hornblower) that often focus on a self-contained incident. In this story, a gawky and seasick Hornblower comes aboard his first ship. He ... (Wikipedia)

  15. All Quiet on the Western Front

    by Erich Maria Remarque
    A soldier's harrowing experience of the horrors of war.

    The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a group of German soldiers on the Western Front during World War I . The patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek had led the whole class to ... (Wikipedia)

  16. I, Claudius

    by Robert Graves
    An epic tale of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, told through the eyes of a dynasty's forgotten leader.

    Into the 'autobiography' of Clau-Clau-Claudius, the pitiful stammerer who was destined to become Emperor in spite of himself, Graves packs the everlasting intrigues, the depravity, the bloody purges ... (Goodreads)

  17. The Shipping News

    by Annie Proulx
    A man's attempt to rebuild his life in a small Newfoundland town, discovering compassion and joy.

    The story centers around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York , whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Bring Up the Bodies

    by Hilary Mantel
    A gripping historical drama recounting the downfall of Anne Boleyn during the reign of Henry VIII.

    Bring Up the Bodies follows closely upon the events of Wolf Hall . The King and Cromwell —now Master Secretary to the King's Privy Council—are guests of the Seymour family at Wolf Hall. The King ... (Wikipedia)

  19. Snow Crash

    by Neal Stephenson
    A hacker's quest in a futuristic America dealing with a mysterious computer virus.

    Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier ( courier ) who refers to herself in the third person , during ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Eye of the Needle

    by Ken Follett
    A thrilling tale of espionage and wartime romance, set in the chaos of WWII.

    In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto , is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. ... (Wikipedia)

  21. Patriot Games

    by Tom Clancy
    A former CIA analyst must protect his family from domestic terrorists, while thwarting a major international conspiracy.

    A kidnapping attempt on the Prince and Princess of Wales and their infant son occurs at the Mall in London . The attack is orchestrated by members of the Ulster Liberation Army , an ideologically ... (Wikipedia)

  22. Wolf Hall

    by Hilary Mantel
    A historical fiction about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.

    England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry ... (Goodreads)

  23. Treasure Island

    by Robert Louis Stevenson
    A thrilling adventure of a young boy and a crew of rogues in search of buried treasure.

    An old sailor named Billy Bones comes to lodge in the rural Admiral Benbow Inn on the Bristol Channel , in England. He tells the innkeeper's son, Jim Hawkins , to keep a lookout for "a one-legged ... (Wikipedia)

  24. Cryptonomicon

    by Neal Stephenson
    A thrilling journey through the past and present, combining tech, history and adventure.

    The action takes place in two periods—World War II and the late 1990s, during the Internet boom and Asian financial crisis . In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a young United States Navy code ... (Wikipedia)

  25. Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

    by Cormac McCarthy
    A violent and bloody western epic, exploring the depths of human depravity.

    An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." ... (Barnes & Noble)

  26. Lieutenant Hornblower

    by C.S. Forester
    An adventurous naval officer navigates the dangerous high seas of the Napoleonic Wars.

    William Bush , who becomes Hornblower's faithful companion and best friend, is introduced boarding HMS, Renown, as the third lieutenant . Hornblower is the fifth and most junior lieutenant. It is ... (Wikipedia)

  27. The Big Sleep

    by Raymond Chandler
    Private eye investigates a complex case involving a wealthy family and blackmail.

    Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of the wealthy and elderly General Sternwood, in the month of October. He wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt by a bookseller named Arthur ... (Wikipedia)

  28. Red Storm Rising

    by Tom Clancy
    An all-out war between NATO and the Soviet Union, as seen through the eyes of the soldiers.

    Militants from Azerbaijan destroy an oil production refinery in Nizhnevartovsk , threatening to cripple the Soviet Union's economy due to oil shortages. After much deliberation, the Soviet Politburo ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Stranger in a Strange Land

    by Robert A. Heinlein
    A human raised by Martians must find his place in a hostile Earth society.

    The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post- Third World War United States, where organized religions are ... (Wikipedia)

  30. On Basilisk Station

    by David Weber
    Space battles and a woman's struggle to prove her worth as a military commander.

    Sidney Harris , the Hereditary President of the People's Republic of Haven, discusses the economic and military situation with his cabinet. Secretary of the Economy Walter Frankel presents the latest ... (Wikipedia)