C.S. Forester & Patrick O'Brian

[Ace]

Tamara wrote: "Ace wrote: "On the 4th of October 2016, I started my retirement living aboard a boat. This year starting on the 4th of October and each 4th of the month after, to mark and celebrate my journey arou..."

Tamara, congratulations on your retirement also. You are not in Spain at the moment are you?
We are leaving Valencia on Saturday to head to Mallorca for a week, then Italy, Albania and Croatia. If you are in the vicinity we should meet up.
Looking forward to discussing book 1 with you.

[Dawn]

Ace wrote: "Bored or distracted by shiny new books???....."

Both, they are long books and can be quite dense. Meaning I can only read so many.

And I've been distracted by new books ever since.

Changing interests in types of books and types of genres also played a factor. That would have been about the time I stopped reading HF and switched to classics and literary fiction.

[Ace]

Yes, the new literary fiction is pulling me away from the rest of my TBR, some titles of which I've been meaning to read for decades!!

[Tamara]

Ace wrote: "Tamara, congratulations on your retirement also. You are not in Spain at the moment are you? ."

Ace, I'm close to Spain. I'm in Kansas :)

[Ace]

Tamara wrote: "Ace wrote: "Tamara, congratulations on your retirement also. You are not in Spain at the moment are you? ."

Ace, I'm close to Spain. I'm in Kansas :)"

Haha, okay we can arrange it for another time then :)

[Kat]

Why hasn't anybody mentioned Alexander Kent and his Bolitho series in this thread?

[Mark]

Kat wrote: "Why hasn't anybody mentioned Alexander Kent and his Bolitho series in this thread?"

He's mentioned in the age of sail/nautical thread. There's a lot of us in this group big fans of this genre.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

This is that Nautical thread, Kat https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

All other authors writing in this sub genre end up there.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Well I'll be a monkeys uncle, (aunt), its Dawn. Trust a buddy read of M&C books to lure you out of lurker world. Lol. ;)

[Simona]

I'm in, Captain! Ready to raise anchor!!! :)

[Dawn]

Ha, yep, I do love me some Age of Sail HF! :)

And I'm always thinking that I should get moving on this series, it is really good. Just time consuming.

[Ace]

Simona wrote: "I'm in, Captain! Ready to raise anchor!!! :)"

Yes!

Actually I am the Admiral (but I don't have a fleet).

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

And I'm assuming the only Cannonballs on Ace's vessel are the Rum cocktail ones.

[happy]

:)

[Ace]

Terri wrote: "And I'm assuming the only Cannonballs on Ace's vessel are the Rum cocktail ones."

Of course. Rum Punch 🍷

[Simona]

_Ace wrote: "Actually I am the Admiral (but I don't have a fleet)._

.....yet.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

When I send out the group broadcast for our Novemebr group read poll in October, I'll add into the message that this buddy readis taking place if others want to join in.

The group read polls go up between the 7th and 9th, so it will work in close to that October 4th start date for the buddy read.

[Simona]

Thank you Mrs Boss!!!!! :))

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

You're welcome, minions.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I've put this buddy read on the group's main page. I'll put each one up at start of the month.

[Ace]

Thanks Terri, I will be starting Master and Commander on the 4th.
I also have the Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester out at the moment from the Library, I thought I would see if I can read both of the series at the same time.

[Tamara]

Ace wrote: "Thanks Terri, I will be starting Master and Commander on the 4th.
I also have the Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester out at the moment from the Lib..."

I started Master and Commander today. But I'm reading two other books at the same time: Crime and Punishment for the Classics and Western Canon group read and The Architect's Apprentice because it's been on my gotta read list forever. So it may be slow going for me because I don't usually read more than one book at a time. But I will try to keep up.

[Simona]

On the 4th I' ll be starting my book!

[Ace]

Simona wrote: "On the 4th I' ll be starting my book!"

😊😊😊

[Ace]

Tamara wrote: "Ace wrote: "Thanks Terri, I will be starting Master and Commander on the 4th.
I also have the Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester out at the moment ..."

Tamara, I have 15 books to read in October. Luckily I have already finished one...

I am about 30% through The Architects Apprentice. I will get back to it soon, but am going to try for The Bastard of Istanbul this month.

[Tamara]

Ace, 15 books in a month?? I don't know how you do that.

I'm enjoying The Architects Apprentice so far. I'd be interested in knowing what you think of The Bastard of Istanbul.

Meanwhile, I'll be plugging away at Master and Commander.

[Ace]

I have a lot of time on my hands Tamara. I also listen to books while doing chores or night watch. We don't watch tv or movies. Sometimes we put on a CD to listen to, but read anyway. 15 would be a new record for me, I think I read 14 in January crossing the South Atlantic to Brazil.
Before this year, I was only reading a book a week at best :(

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Are there many chores on a boat? :)

[Ace]

Terri wrote: "Are there many chores on a boat? :)"

Ive moved this discussion over to Random Thoughts. Sorry for hijacking the authors thread :)

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Well it is relevant. lol. Although I am sure nobody in Master and Commander will be cursing their mouldy towels and scrubbing the salt from their delicates.

[Ace]

MASTER AND COMMANDER BUDDY READ

Supporting material:

Glossary of terms associated with Master and Commander

http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/vol3ii.ht...

A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O'Brian by Dean King

[Ace]

MASTER AND COMMANDER BUDDY READ

Chapter 2

Well I'm only at chapter 2 and loving this book. Not only the "voice" of Jack, but of the current location, Minorca which is just beside Mallorca where I departed from Spain 2 weeks ago. From there we sailed to Cagliari in Italy and lo and behold, Jack Aubrey gets his first orders to go to... you guessed it. Cagliari.
Below are some of the historic sites I went to.

Elephant Tower


Amphitheater


Bastione di Saint Remy needing desperate attention:


Chiesa di Santa Chiara


Entry to someone's house in the old city

[Tamara]

Lovely photos, Ace.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Wow, that's great! Not reading the books, but I'll be following thread closely if there's pics!

[May]

Awesome!!!

[Margaret, Sherlockian Sheila]

Terri wrote: "Wow, that's great! Not reading the books, but I'll be following thread closely if there's pics!"

Me too.

[Bremonline]

I decided to join this buddy read by listening to an audio version that has been on my to do list for several years. I have read the entire book several times. As I get older I have been trying to switch to audiobooks. I am finding listening to it a very different experience than reading and much harder to “get into” the world. I am surprised, I listened to the Hornblower series a few years ago and found that I preferred the audio version.

Over the years I have recommended and handed out copies of Patrick O’Brian to a dozen friends. Eleven didn’t care for it and never got past the first chapter. The twelfth read the entire series, bought it in matching hardback set and tried to recreate some of the truly odd recipes in the series. When she dressed up for Halloween it got a bit scary. After that I was afraid to recommend the series.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

What narrator has your audio version got, Bremonline?

[Ace]

Bremonline wrote: "I decided to join this buddy read by listening to an audio version that has been on my to do list for several years. I have read the entire book several times. As I get older I have been trying to ..."

It will be good to have the audiobook perspective Bremonline, great that you can join in. I love audiobooks, but don't have this one. I'll have to check if Overdrive has any of the other books in the series on audio.

[Tamara]

I did try. Really. I struggled with Master and Commander for over 100 pages. I think you have to have some knowledge of boats and sails and nautical terminology to appreciate it. I don’t even have a smidgen. I don’t know which end of a boat is up, or the difference between starboard and larboard, or any of the other bits and pieces of a boat. I couldn’t understand the terminology.

I tried to power through thinking it will eventually make sense to me, but it was way over my head. So I did something I hate to do: I waved the white flag of surrender and abandoned the book. I feel bad about doing that, but I really did try. It just wasn’t for me.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

It is hard to give up on a book without guilt (unless the book is simply badly written then there's no guilt), but with all those books out there waiting you can't go wasting time on the one's you just aren't compatible with.

[Tamara]

I do feel bad about giving up on it. I don't think it's a bad book. It's probably very good if you understand all the nautical lingo. It just didn't gel with me.

[Margaret, Sherlockian Sheila]

I have no guilt. Life is too short to read boring books.

[Ace]

That's a shame Tamara, but I agree with the girls. Hope you pick a winner with your next read.

[Ace]

MASTER AND COMMANDER BUDDY READ

Diagram of a Square Rigged Ship (from my Kindle edition)

[Tamara]

Ace wrote: "MASTER AND COMMANDER BUDDY READ

Diagram of a Square Rigged Ship (from my Kindle edition)

"

Thank you for that, Ace. It's helpful. And as my former students always used to ask, "Will there be a quiz on this?"

[Ace]

No worries Tamara. It may explain why we are confused about all of the terms.

On my sailboat there is one mainsail and a possibility to put up an additional genoa, screacher or spinnaker so I only have to manage a maximum of 2 sails at a time!

[Tamara]

Ace wrote: "No worries Tamara. It may explain why we are confused about all of the terms.

On my sailboat there is one mainsail and a possibility to put up an additional genoa, screacher or spinnaker so I only..."

It certainly does explain it. Thank you for relieving me of some of my guilt for abandoning the book. I had no idea that all these words were names for different sails and/or their different locations. I should have probably done my homework before tackling the book.

[Ace]

I forgot to mention that I also have 2 quite powerful diesel engines (which Aubrey didn't). They are very useful 😎

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Blimey. That's a lot of sail. I had never even noticed that some boats had that much sail going on.

Ace, would it be uncommon for a ship to be in full sail like the diagram? Would it mostly be only under its main sails until they needed speed and the wind was low?