I've been doing some naughty-cle reading

My reading this part of the year has been scattershot. I'll start one book, then jump to another only to jump to yet another. Somehow in all of this I picked up a copy of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and started tearing through it faster than most of the books I've finished this year.

This is a bit unexpected because I've never read nautical fiction before and didn't think that it would be my sort of thing. Unless this is some one-off fluke, I might have been wrong about that assumption. I checked the book out from the library on Sunday and now I'm more than halfway through. I wouldn't be surprised if I finish it off today or tomorrow.

For those who don't know: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower is the first book in C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series, which followers the career of the aforementioned Hornblower from a young Midshipman (which I think is what they called Ensigns back then) to an Admiral and noble in the Royal Navy during the late 18th and 19th century. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower is set during the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars fought during that period. The later books transition to the Napoleonic Wars. While it is the first book in the Hornblower series, it isn't the first one written. Forester wrote Beat to Quarters first, which featured an older Hornblower, then decided after the success of that book to go back and trace Hornblower's naval career from the beginning on up.

No idea if I'll read any of the other books in the series, but I might since I like this one so much.