[Darris McNeely] It's time for another installment of the books that feed you for a long-time series that I've been going through here on "BT Daily's." Remember, I take this from a Scripture in Ecclesiastes 12 beginning in verse 11, that talks about the words of the wise, being like goads. And the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd. And then it goes on to talk about how of the making of books, there is no end. And we all know there are a lot of books out there. As I say, there's too many books and too little life in terms of the time to read everything that we might like to read.

The book that I'd like to talk about here today is a little different from what I've been covering in some of the other episodes. It's a historical novel, that is, what are generally called the Patrick O'Brian novels. They're a historical set of novels, there are 20 of them that were written over the lifetime of this gentleman, Patrick O'Brian, dealing with the story of the British Navy during the Napoleonic era, the Napoleonic period. And the 20 separate novels are actually one full story told over 20 novels. I'm actually at novel number 19 right now, about to finish it all up. And it's taken me several years to do this. But it's the story of a British naval Captain, Jack Aubrey, and his ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin, and their adventures as they sail the world, and both on land and on sea, on their ships in service to the British Crown during the Napoleonic period. It has spies, it has clashes. It has battles. It has geography, history, culture. It also has the story between two individuals dealing with courage, honesty, hard work. There's a lot of things that are going on in a very intricately told story but well-told story.

It may not be for everyone. And there's probably a reason that it's taken me several years to get through all of these novels but a bit of a diversion, a bit of a change along the historical novel path can be often good for us. Choosing a book, choosing a novel that helps you to learn something a little bit different and coming at matters that courage, and honesty, and hard work from the perspective of a ship and the captain of a ship. There was one movie that was made off of these novels that you probably are more familiar with called "Master and Commander" several years ago. And if you've seen that movie, that movie was set and based in these novels.

So if you're looking for something that's a bit of a diversion from other things that we might normally read, I would highly recommend them. They have value for those that are interested. Books that feed you for a long time, like well-driven nails that help us to hold our life together.

That's "BT Daily." Join us next time.