I am in a re-reading cycle just now, following a
naval adventures theme. What I have read so far:
- The
Honor Harrington series by
David Weber:- On Basilisk Station
- The Honor of the Queen
- The Short, Victorious War*
- Field of Dishonor
- Flag in Exile
* The title comes from two epigraphs which almost feel drawn from
events of today:- Vyacheslav von Plehve in reference to the 1904 Russo-Japanese War:
“What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of revolution.” - Robert Wilson Lynd:
“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”
- On Basilisk Station
Tom Clancy‘s The Hunt for Red October
Next on my re-read list is
Herman Melville‘s Moby Dick, and then
Richard Henry Dana‘s
Two Years Before the Mast.
My favorite part of Dana’s story is the last chapter in which he visits
San Francisco Bay. The description of the Bay Area taken from his diary
in the late 1830’s (before the Gold Rush) is fascinating.
KatysBlog 
The space battles in the Honor Harrington books are good, but the remainder of the text alternates between committee meetings and overlong internal monologues. I swore them off when I started pausing to rewrite scenes in my head, starting with the people laying in wait instead of surprising the reader, for example.
Elizabeth Moon is a more competent writer than Weber and has a nice long space navy series. Lois McMaster Bujold is even better.
The Odyssey is a fine book about sailing, too.