O’Brian liked Jane Austen, and his style has been favorably compared to hers. The first novel is your standard RN book. As he became more popular and his publisher wanted a series, the Austen quality begins to show.
I second this author. He obviously wrote in an older style, which I enjoy reading. I have yet to try Ms Austen.
You could try the books of Robert Rankin, which start with the Brentford Trilogy and continue on into absurdity, with a sort of magical surreality in a modern-day London. He also has the most wince-inducing punny titles (such as “Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls”), but that just adds to the charm.
For a more modern series, I highly recommend the Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson. There are four books, with a fifth on the way. Brodie is a former Edinburgh cop who does investigative work. Very well written and great characters.
For something different from your usual, you might try Craig Johnson’s Longmire series. Yes, he’s a Wyoming sheriff, but set in today’s world, with an interesting cast of characters and good stories.
If you want humorous fantasy then I would suggest:
- Myth Adventures series by Robert Aspirin
- Xanth series by Piers Anthony (frankly he went way too far with those and they got tiresome but good fun for several books)
I enjoyed the first few Xanth books, as well, back when I read them in the 1980s. More recently, a number of reviewers (and several discussions we’ve had here in Cafe Society) have pointed out recurring themes of misogyny, and a fair amount of focus on sex with underaged girls, in Anthony’s books.
A couple of articles on the topic:
A discussion on Anthony here on the SDMB, dating back to 2000:
I’ll third it. The language takes just a little while to become attuned to and you’ll end up knowing more about the Napoleonic-era Royal Navy then you ever wanted to. But it is worth it. The section in “Desolation Island” in a wild southern ocean and a hostile Dutch ship-of-the-line is utterly compelling.
You’ll also end up realising how much nautical terms have penetrated our everyday speech.
I read them in the 80’s too and did not remember that (I was a teen then so I did not pick up on any of that).
Lawrence Block wrote “The Topless Tulip Caper” and “Make Out with Murder”. The protagonist is Goodwin to a detective who believes Nero Wolfe to be real. Tropical fish replaces cuisine as a hobby.
Good suggestion. I’m reading these at the moment.
They get progressively darker. I’m up to date, and the last one, The Labyrinth Index, was just bleak as hell.
Most of what I came here to suggest - fforde, the Aubrey-Maturin series (which are packed with dry, subtle humor), Christopher Moore, George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman novels - have already been mentioned. So here’s one that hasn’t:
Lois MacMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga. Scifi, set in a universe where humanity has spread to dozens of planets, and featuring a cast of very well-written and realized characters. They’re space opera, although her abiding interest is in biology and the question of “what is a human?”, the implications of which she explores in several ways. Great battles, but also a lot of comedy, and a very likeable protagonist. (Several, in fact).
If you prefer medievalesque fantasy, try Bujold’s “World of the Five Gods”, which she described as an exercise in “speculative religion”.
OP, you also mentioned Chesterton’s Father Brown stories. They can be hard to find, but Chesterton has several other short story collections, featuring the same sort of mysteries as the Father Brown stories. Try the League of the Longbow series. Also several good novels, such as The Man Who Was Thursday and The Ball And The Cross. Chesterton’s blatant racism and anti-Semitism are hard to get past, but if you can, there’s good stuff there.
I’ll echo the recommendations of Flashman and Rivers of London. I gave up on the latter after two poor works and the author seeming to concentrate no graphic novels but was persuaded to return with the latest in which he closes off the first arc.
The Flashman novels are indeed good stuff.
I would suggest Worldwar by Harry Turtledove. The premise is during the height of WWII Earth is invaded by aliens that have star ships but roughly 1990s weapons technology. It has a lot of POV characters and a global scope.
The series is five books. There is a sequel series that is not as good.
I’ll read anything by Stephen R. Donaldson.
The Fletch novels by Gregory MacDonald have a lot of humor.
Kings of the Wyld and* Bloody Rose* by Nicholas Eames are must reading for fans of Discworld. It’s a different author, different style but same irreverent humor.
If you have a Kindle, Mark Berent’s Wings of War was released in that format a few years ago. Physical copies can difficult to find these days but I see the first one is currently unavailable for Kindle for some reason.
For thrillers I highly recommend F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series and the FBI Special Agent Aloysius F.X. Pendergast series, at least through Fever Dream, by Preston and Child. I also like the old Doc Savage series.
For mysteries, I’d say give Ellery Queen, P.D. James, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett a whirl. I second Sherlock Holmes as a series; the short stories, IMO, are better than the novels save for The Hound of the Baskervilles.
If you like Heinlein, I recommend Poul Anderson’s Polesoletechnic League/Terran Empire/beyond the fall of said Empire series featuring in the first part Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn and in the second part Captain Sir Dominc Flandry. I second Miles Vorkosigan.
For classics, I recommend John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Alexandre Dumas, and Sinclair Lewis’ novels of the 1920’s.
Indeed. He even gave his lead character the same initials as her.
This may also be of interest: "Jane Austen and the Navy" - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
I loved Johannes Cabal the Necromancer and the series of books that followed. Very funny.