Blue at the Mizzen
As Aubrey and Maturin slow down with age, so do their adventures. And yet regardless of the slackening of excitement and intrigue - elements so prevalent in most of the prior books - I still found Blue at the Mizzen enjoyable, partly because I'm so comfortably familiar with the characters and partly because of the beautifully crafted prose. However, if this had been the first O'Brian book I'd ever read, its uneventfulness might have made me shy away from his work.