January 31st was the official end-date of the Seafaring Challenge, my first ever challenge. The challenge was to read nautical books and depending on how many you read, you could reach different ranks.

I planned to go for the rank of Admiral, by reading four books, but I only managed three, as I got a bit lazy towards the end and veered away from my Seafaring Challenge fourth choice in favour of other books. But no worries, I’m still a mighty fine Commodore (which I became because I “read three books, any genre or sub genre, but [took] things up a notch by adding a classic to the mix”. That’s provided you count Hornblower books as classics, which I do).

My books were:

• Kydd; Julian Stockwin
• Flying Colours; CS Forester
• His Majesty’s Dragon; Naomi Novik

I liked His Majesty’s Dragon and Flying Colours about equally, and Kydd not so much. I’ve read a lot of the Hornblower books before, but apparently not that particular one (even though I thought so before opening the book). I plan to keep reading the series by Novik, but I think the first Kydd book will also be the last I read.

Mr Midshipman Easy, the book that I planned to read, but didn’t, will still get read at some point this year, as I mean to use it for the Decades ’08 challenge. It just won’t count towards my naval rank.

Many thanks to Christina for hosting this challenge!