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arbieroo

Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.

Currently reading

Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
Progress: 749/997 pages
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
Progress: 8/160 pages
The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
Marguerite de Navarre
Progress: 152/544 pages
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield
John Masefield
Progress: 78/534 pages
Poems Selected
Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
Progress: 4/50 pages
Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
Progress: 18/160 pages
The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
Progress: 133/789 pages
SPOILER ALERT!

Blue at the Mizzen, Patrick O'Brian

Blue at the Mizzen (Aubrey/Maturin #20) - Patrick O'Brian

So here ends the Aubrey-Maturin epic saga, though a further book was left incomplete at the time of O'Brian's death. It's a good thing, really. The struggle to find anything original for the pair to do, growing ever more difficult since as far back as book 11, had by this point proved impossible. With the Napoleonic Wars over, reasons for further voyages were also getting contrived. Maturin's drug abuse with no real  consequence was getting a little preposterous. Hence ending on the upbeat note of Aubrey finally gaining his Admiral's flag and sailing off to take up command of a squadron on a ship-of-the-line seems the perfect conclusion.