All things British

Patrick O'Brian (and here and here) wrote 20+ historical fiction books about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars. His books center on two main characters: Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Aubrey is the dashing, hardheaded and hard drinking ship captain, while Maturin is the introspective, intellectual ship's surgeon and naturalist doubling as an undercover British agent.

Being a regular at any bookstore that happens to be within 30 miles, I had been aware of this series for a long time, but had never picked up the first book. Like a lot of others, my interest was piqued by the movie Master and Commander, and I broke down and bought the first book in the series. I've since completed the first three in the series, and once you get used to the nautical and British jargon, have found them to be very good. A contributor on the Chronicles forum has suggested reading Men-of-War, O'Brian's non-fiction historical perspective on the British admiralty to truly gain an appreciation on the subject and era.

Not to be outdone... Bernard Cornwell (here and here) stands as the primary author of British army historical fiction. Cornwell covers roughly the same era as O'Brian with his Sharpe's series, and while not nearly so jargonistic (is that a word?), the books are every bit as exciting and interesting. The BBC ran a series of 1 hour movies based on the novels starring Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe. I've ordered the first 2 from netflix.