Книги, похожие на «Jane Austen, Sanditon»

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. Now, for the first time, they are available in electronic book format, so a whole new generation of readers can be swept away on the adventure of a lifetime. This is the ninth book in the series.Uniquely among authors of naval fiction, Patrick O’Brian allows his characters to develop with experience. The Jack Aubrey of Treason’s Harbour has a record of successes equal to that of the most brilliant of Nelson’s band of brothers, and he is no less formidable or decisive in action or strategy. But he is wiser, kinder, gentler too.Much of the plot of Treason’s Harbour depends on intelligence and counter-intelligence, a field in which Aubrey’s friend Stephen Maturin excels. Through him we get a clearer insight into the life and habits of the sea officers of Nelson’s time than we would ever obtain seeing things through their own eyes. There is plenty of action and excitement in this novel, but it is the atmosphere of a Malta crowded with senior officers waiting for news of what the French are up to, and wondering whether the war will end before their turn comes for prize money and for fame, that is here so freshly and vividly conveyed.

A Richard Sharpe short story, featuring scenes of action and adventure at Christmas.‘You’ll like Irati,’ Colonel Hogan said. ‘It’s a nothing place, Richard. Hovels and misery, that’s all it is and all it ever will be, but that’s where you’re going for Christmas.’Sharpe was sent to Irati because maybe the French were going there. The garrison planned to march at Christmas in the hope that their enemies would be too bloated with beef and wine to fight, but Hogan had got wind of their plans and was now setting his snares on the only two routes that the escaping French could use. One, the eastern road, was by far the easier route, for it entered France through a low pass, and Hogan guessed it was that route that the French would choose. But there was a second road, a tight, hard, steep road, and that had to be blocked as well and so the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers, Sharpe’s regiment, would climb into the hills and spend their Christmas at a place of hovels and misery called Irati.Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.H.M.S. Surprise follows the variable fortunes of Captain Jack Aubrey’s career in Nelson’s navy as he attempts to hold his ground against admirals, colleagues and the enemy, accepting a mission to convey a British ambassador to the East Indies. The voyage takes him and his friend Stephen Maturin to the strange sights and smells of the Indian sub-continent, and through the archipelago of spice islands where the French have a near-overwhelming superiority.Rarely has a novel managed to convey more vividly the fragility of a sailing ship in a wild sea. Rarely has a historical novelist combined action and lyricism of style in the way that O’ Brian does. His superb sense of place, brilliant characterisation, and a vigour and joy of writing lift O’Brian above any but the most exalted of comparisons.