1. Take those Austen novels and pack ‘em away.
2. Drop what you’re doing and head off of to the nearest book store.
3. Buy the complete set of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels.
4. Read all twenty volumes sequentially starting with Master and Commander .
5. No need to thank me until you’ve finished them all.
“Come, sir, cannot I prevail upon you to go to sea? A man-of-war is the very thing for a philosopher, above all in the Mediterranean: there are the birds, the fishes—I could promise you some monstrous strange fishes—the natural phenomena, the meteors, the chance of prize-money. For even Aristotle would have been moved by prize-money . . . .”
“A ship must be a most instructive theatre for an inquiring mind . . . .”
“Prodigiously instructive, I do assure you, Doctor.”
—Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy convincing Stephen Maturin, natural philosopher, to join him at sea (Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander )
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