Marco Polo Polo itibaren Пенкейтленд, Tranent, East Lothian EH34 5AT, UK itibaren Пенкейтленд, Tranent, East Lothian EH34 5AT, UK

Last time I wrote a review of Master and Commander, it ran, well, long. It's hard not to lavish the love one has for the whole series upon its first splendid installment. I'll do my best to be brief. Patrick O'Brian writes strong, varied and evocative prose. His characters are distinctive, human and easy to love. These books teem with the unexpected, with the promise of a battle or a rich prize always over the horizon. They are a joy to read and to reread; funny, poignant, stirring, intelligent. Master and Commander is, as I believe all the Aubrey-Maturin series is, on one level about friendship. The chance encounter that opens the novel also opens up the lives of the characters to unforeseen breadth and potential. Aubrey's genius on the sea needs Maturin's wary guardianship on land to allow it to prosper; Maturin's morbid inwardness leaves him in need of Jack's bluff friendship and practicality to pull him back into the human world. The entire rich sweep of the novels begins in the encounter of the jolly lieutenant and the annoyed man in the drab coat, depends and expounds on the way deep friendships can transform the friends and the world.

Funny book about a journalist trying really hard to be a player at Vanity Fair. I thought it was humorous, but also a little depressing.