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Recommendations based on H.M.S. Surpriseby Patrick O'Brian
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The Fortune of War
by Patrick O'Brian
During the War of 1812, Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin are captured and imprisoned in America. They must escape and make their way back to England.
HMS Leopard sails from Desolation Island to Port Jackson where she drops off her few prisoners. Captain Bligh is already handled, so she proceeds to the Dutch East Indies station and Admiral Drury at ... (Wikipedia)
The Surgeon's Mate
by Patrick O'Brian
A tale of adventure and romance set during the Napoleonic Wars.
Sailing into Halifax, the victorious HMS Shannon contends with her losses in officers and crew, with particular concern for Captain Broke, who lies unconscious from head wounds. The American Captain ... (Wikipedia)
Desolation Island
by Patrick O'Brian
Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin are stranded on a remote island, facing harsh conditions and a dangerous enemy.
Jack Aubrey, having recovered financially in, The Mauritius Command, , expands his house, pays off his mother-in-law's debts, and his wife is no longer pinching pennies. His household staffed with ... (Wikipedia)
All's Well That Ends Well
by William Shakespeare
A young woman, Helena, uses her wit and determination to win the love of her unrequited crush, Bertram.
Helena, a ward of the Countess of Rousillion, falls in love with the Countess's son, Bertram. Daughter of a famous doctor, and a skilled physician in her own right, Helena cures the King of ... (Goodreads)
Timescape
by Gregory Benford
Scientists send a message back in time to warn of ecological disaster, but the message may not be received in time to prevent it.
The story is written from two viewpoints, equidistant from the novel's publication in 1980. The first thread is set in a 1998 ravaged by ecological disasters such as algal blooms and diebacks on the ... (Wikipedia)
Dominion
by C.J. Sansom
Historical mystery set in 15th century England, exploring themes of power, loyalty and redemption.
1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers, and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British ... (Goodreads)
Life or Death
by Michael Robotham
A man escapes prison on the eve of his release, risking everything to prove his innocence and find his missing daughter.
Audie Palmer escapes from a Texas jail the day before the end of his ten-year sentence for armed robbery and second-degree murder. His friend Moss Webster is mysteriously released from the same ... (Wikipedia)
The Stone Angel
by Margaret Laurence
An elderly woman reflects on her life and relationships with family, friends, and society.
In a series of vignettes , The Stone Angel tells the story of Hagar Shipley, a 90-year-old woman struggling to come to grips with a life of intransigence and loss. The themes of pride and the ... (Wikipedia)
The Seven-Percent Solution
by Nicholas Meyer
Sherlock Holmes seeks help from Sigmund Freud to overcome his cocaine addiction and solve a kidnapping case.
An introduction states that two canonical Holmes adventures were fabrications. These are " The Final Problem ", in which Holmes apparently died along with Prof. James Moriarty , and " The Empty House ... (Wikipedia)
The Sittaford Mystery
by Agatha Christie
A seance goes wrong when a guest is murdered. The suspects are trapped in a snowstorm, and amateur sleuths race to solve the case.
Sittaford is a tiny village on the fringe of Dartmoor . Mrs Willett and her daughter Violet are the newly installed tenants of Sittaford House, a residence owned by Trevelyan, a retired Navy captain. ... (Wikipedia)
Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens
A satirical tale of a young man's trials and tribulations of greed, deception, and redemption.
Martin Chuzzlewit has been raised by his grandfather and namesake. Years before Martin senior took the precaution of raising an orphaned girl, Mary Graham, to be his companion and nursemaid, with the ... (Wikipedia)
T is for Trespass
by Sue Grafton
Detective Kinsey Millhone investigates the disappearance of a client's daughter, uncovering a web of secrets and lies.
Kinsey's cantankerous neighbor Gus is badly injured in a fall and hires Solana Rojas, a private nurse, to help him while he recuperates. Kinsey becomes suspicious when Gus becomes isolated and ... (Wikipedia)
Skippy Dies
by Paul Murray
A tragicomic story of a group of teenage boys in an Irish boarding school.
Skippy Dies follows the lives of a group of students and faculty members at the fictional Seabrook College, a Catholic boarding school in Dublin . The title character, Daniel "Skippy" Juster, dies ... (Wikipedia)
In the Lake of the Woods
by Tim O'Brien
A man's search for understanding of his traumatic past and its consequences.
The main storyline often branches out to flashbacks of significant trees in John Wade's past. His childhood is constantly referred to as the advent of his persona, Sorcerer. As a child, John was ... (Wikipedia)
Billy Budd, Sailor
by Herman Melville
A story of justice, morality, and innocence against a backdrop of a naval war.
Billy Budd is a seaman impressed into service aboard HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the Royal Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by the Revolutionary French Republic ... (Wikipedia)
The Big Nowhere
by James Ellroy
A crime noir set in 1950s Los Angeles, unraveling a web of corruption and violence.
The plot is about three characters; L.A. Deputy Sheriff Danny Upshaw investigates a brutal sex murder which becomes a string of killings, working outside the law in his efforts to catch him. Turner ... (Wikipedia)
The Looking Glass War
by John le Carré
Cold War espionage, involving a small British intelligence unit in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
During the early 1960s, the formerly renowned British military intelligence organisation known colloquially as "The Department" is floundering. Surviving on long past memories of its aerial ... (Wikipedia)
Death in the Clouds
by Agatha Christie
A deadly crime takes place in an airplane, and a famous detective solves the case.
Hercule Poirot travels back to England on the midday flight from Paris to Croydon Airport in London. He is one of eleven passengers in the plane's rear compartment. The others include: mystery writer ... (Wikipedia)
Barchester Towers
by Anthony Trollope
Social satire of Victorian England, exploring hypocrisy and ambition in a small cathedral town.
Barchester Towers concerns the leading clergy of the cathedral city of Barchester. The much loved bishop having died, all expectations are that his son, Archdeacon Grantly, will succeed him. Owing to ... (Wikipedia)
Murder in Mesopotamia
by Agatha Christie
A group of archaeologists in Iraq unravel a mystery of murder and intrigue.
Nurse Amy Leatheran arrives at an archaeological dig near Hassanieh, Iraq , to assist the Swedish-American archaeologist, Dr Eric Leidner, in caring for his wife, Louise. During her initial days, Amy ... (Wikipedia)
S is for Silence
by Sue Grafton
A female detective investigates a missing persons case that reveals a sinister family secret.
In 1953, Violet Sullivan vanishes after going out for a Fourth of July party in the small town of Serena Station, California. The exact reason for her disappearance is unknown, but rumors abound that ... (Wikipedia)
Scoop
by Evelyn Waugh
A humorous and satirical look at journalistic misadventures in Africa.
Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the "Daily Beast", has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, ... (Goodreads)
Antony and Cleopatra
by William Shakespeare
The tragic love story of Roman general Mark Antony and Egyptian queen Cleopatra, set against the backdrop of political power struggles.
A romantic tragedy about the relationship between Mark Antony and the Queen of Egypt, including notes and critical commentary. ... (Goodreads)
Moll Flanders
by Daniel Defoe
A woman's story of survival and redemption, confronting the harsh realities of life in 18th century England.
Moll's mother is a convict in Newgate Prison in London who is given a reprieve by " pleading her belly ," a reference to the custom of staying the executions of pregnant criminals. Her mother is ... (Wikipedia)
Adam Bede
by George Eliot
A carpenter, Adam Bede, falls in love with a beautiful woman, Hetty Sorrel, who is in love with another man. Tragedy ensues.
According to, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, (1967), The novel follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral, and close-knit community in ... (Wikipedia)
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
by Howard Pyle
Legendary outlaw Robin Hood fights injustice and defends the oppressed with his band of merry men.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Consisting of a series of episodes in the story of the ... (Goodreads)
Sometimes a Great Notion
by Ken Kesey
A powerful story of a family's struggle against the odds and the forces of change.
The story centers on the Stamper family, a hard-headed logging clan in the coastal town of Wakonda, on the Oregon coast, in the early 1960s. The union loggers in Wakonda go on strike in demand of the ... (Wikipedia)
A Month in the Country
by J.L. Carr
A man's journey of personal and spiritual redemption, set in rural England during WWI.
In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby where he is to restore a recently ... (Goodreads)
The Chrysalids
by John Wyndham
A post-apocalyptic tale of survival and the struggle against oppressive forces.
The inhabitants of post-apocalypse Labrador have vague knowledge of the "Old People", a technologically advanced civilization they believe was destroyed when God sent " Tribulation " to the world to ... (Wikipedia)
The Odessa File
by Frederick Forsyth
The uncovering of a sinister Nazi plot, while searching for the truth of a young boy's death.
In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Peter Miller, a German freelance crime reporter, follows an ambulance to the apartment of Salomon Tauber, a Holocaust survivor ... (Wikipedia)
