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Back to Fun pages .......Blue at the Mizzen

 Praise for Blue at the Mizzen:

"O'Brian has presented his readers with a shining jewel. Blue at the Mizzen is an intricate, multifaceted work.... There is nothing in this century that rivals Patrick O'Brian's achievement in his chosen genre. His novels embrace with loving clarity the full richness of the 18th-century world. They embody the cruelty of battle, the comedy of men's lives, the uncertain fears that plague their hearts; and yet, not far away, is the vision of an ideal existence." -Amanda Foreman, New York Times Book Review

"Filled with exuberance and humor, and a writer's palpable delight at exercising his finest muscles.... At sea with a master." -Peter Nichols, San Francisco Chronicle

"I have feasted on all 20 of the Aubrey-Maturin novels with the same happy gluttony with which my 9-year-old daughter devours the Harry Potter novels." ...........................................................-John Casey, Washington Post

"After 20 novels, I want Stephen and Jack to go on and on.... [O'Brian] has given us both a definition of noble character and a glimpse of a stretch of Western historr---alternately revered and reviled, depending upon whom you ask- that at least wasn't dull. And for that, God bless him." -Rob Laymon, Philadelphia Inquirer

"In an era that likes adventure yarns, no books offer better adventures than these. But I don't think that's the main appeal; rather, as with all literature of the first rank, it is the exploration of human emotions that were the same in Napoleon's day as they are in ours. In O'Brian's characters- in their pleasures and humiliations, their triumphs and failures, their ludicrous moments and their heroic ones- we feel the vibrations of our own lives, and we come to cherish them as we do our friends." -Richard Snow, Wall Street Journal

 

From W,W. Norton's PATRICK O'BRIAN page:

W. W. Norton & Company mourns the loss of Patrick O'Brian, one of the great authors of the twentieth century, whose novels were often compared by critics to the work of Jane Austen and even Homer. A writer of breathtaking erudition, Mr. O'Brian evoked in complete and dazzling detail an entire world-that of the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. In addition to formidable scholarship, Mr. O'Brian brought to his work keen psychological insights, a sharp wit, and fast-paced, heart-stopping action.

The Aubrey/Maturin Series
"The best historical novels ever written." --The New York Times
 

Click here to view a book written by two remarkable, enterprising young English women in celebration of Patrick O'Brian's introduction into his novels of astonishing items on the ship's bill of fare like lobscouse, spotted dog, drowned baby, syllabub and the like. They have gone out of their way to re-create these items and many more, accompanied by recipes and personal narratives of their adventures in doing so. And here for a page of quotations about O'Brian's "portable soup," another of the items reproduced by the English O'Brianists!