Tagged: Aubrey/Maturin series
My Favorite Reads of 2015
2015 was a down year for me in terms of number of books read. I had some academic responsibilities in the summer and early fall that took up time I would usually have spent reading. Because of that I missed hitting my reading goal of 40 books. Still, I read 23 books, and these are my top 5: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas – This was a great re-read, and I hope at some point to read the sequels. In His Spirit by Richard Hauser, SJ – A spiritual...
My Favorite Books of 2014
2014 was a very productive and satisfying year for me in reading. I read 44 books, surpassing my goal of 40, and many of them were some of the best books I’ve ever read. One of the things I love about using Goodreads to keep track of my reading is how easy it is to see the patterns and trends of my reading habits. Here’s a breakdown of some aspects of my reading for 2014: 80% of the books I read were ebooks (35 out of 44), my...
My Favorite Reads of 2012
I successfully reached my goal of reading 40 books this year, and of the 42 I read, these were my favorites: The Aubrey/Maturin Series, books 6-13 by Patrick O’Brian: As I continue re-reading the series, I am loving the dictionary look-up feature on the Kindle to help me deal with the nautical terms. After Don Quixote and The Lord of the Rings, these are my favorite books of all time. Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov: This has had...
Rare Patrick O’Brian Interview
As some of you know, I am a great fan of Patrick O’Brian’s series of Napoleonic-era naval stories featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin. Patrick O’Brian was a very private man, and interview footage of him is hard to come by, so I was thrilled when I recently discovered that C-Span has posted the interview O’Brian gave to Walter Cronkite in 1999. C-Span is not allowing the video to be embedded on other sites, so you’ll have to follow the link to watch it, but it’s...
Master and Commander Audio Book Review
Simon Vance does a superb job reading every character in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander except one: the central character Jack Aubrey. I just finished listening to Blackstone Audio’s unabridged version of Master and Commander, and the book keeps getting better each time I experience it. I first read it about ten years ago, then a few years after that I listened to Patrick Tull’s unabridged audio recording from RecordedBooks.com. This time around I didn’t get so bogged down trying to understand the naval jargon, so I was...
Music to Listen to While You Read Part I
Picture yourself curled up on the couch with a good book and your favorite drink. No interruptions. What music is playing in the background? Some people like to read in silence, but I’m not one of them. The right music helps me become more involved in my book by creating a kind of environmental blanket that envelops me and keeps the world out. I thought I’d share some of my favorite music to read by with you in the hopes that you might share yours with me. If...
Geoff Hunt, Master Painter and O’Brian Cover Artist
This week’s cover artist is Geoff Hunt, the master painter behind Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin nautical series. Take a look at the following two covers for a good example of how much impact a cover can make. The image on the left is from the first edition of Master and Commander, and the second image is Geoff Hunt’s painting for the same book: To me there is no comparison. I’m no art critic, but I know what I like. And I love Geoff Hunt’s covers. Hunt painted the covers...
