Why am I passionate about this?
Like so many boys, I grew up playing soldiers with my friends. Now I’m a trained historian and running around waving a stick as a pretend rifle yelling rat-a-tat, or sword fighting with fallen branches, just isn’t a good look for me. But I can still appreciate the heroism of soldiers that drew me to play those games in the first place. These books scratch that itch, as well as meeting the standard of truthfulness that the historian in me needs. Believable settings with heroes you can root for and stakes that feel real. That’s what I like to read and that’s what I write.
Matt's book list on fantastic heroes at war
Why did Matt love this book?
This is C.S. Forester’s famous naval hero Horatio Hornblower at his best. Captain Hornblower is in command of his first ship of the line. Forester knows ships from bowsprit to sternchasers and you can feel it in every word. There's a truth to the writing that puts you right down in the thick of it. Duty, skill and courage are on display throughout and the climax, when Captain Hornblower accepts an impossible task to protect his allies, and turns his ship to face three to one odds, knowing he cannot win? It’s a masterclass in writing a battle scene, sailors facing certain death with iron will. Nerve wracking doesn’t begin to cover it.
2 authors picked Ship of the Line as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
May, 1810 - and thirty-nine-year-old Captain Horatio Hornblower has been handed his first ship of the line . . .
Though the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland is 'the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy' and a crew shortage means he must recruit two hundred and fifty landlubbers, Hornblower knows that by the time Sutherland and her squadron reach the blockaded Catalonian coast every seaman will do his duty. But with daring raids against the French army and navy to be made, it will take all Hornblower's seamanship - and stewardship - to steer a steady course to victory and…