Books by Patrick O'Brian

“Desolation Island has everything that I love about naval fiction. There’s a near-mutiny, there are storms and all this seafaring stuff. They go down near Antarctica. Polar exploration is one of my niche obsessions in history, so I really like the setting. Patrick O’Brian is good at bringing to life what it would have been like on those ships: the big details and little details, the lower decks of the normal crew, and the officers. It’s like a slice of life narrative he has in his books, where it’s very, very intimate and very focused on the characters and their behaviors and their world. He’s good with the seafaring jargon as well, and the technical details…He shows that he knows what he’s talking about, and it’s very authentic.” Read more...

The Best Naval Historical Fiction

Katie Daysh, Novelist