Why would I recommend not reading this book? The answer is simple; I urge you to start at the beginning and buy Master and Commander, the first book. I say this because the odds are you have not read O'Brian before, if you had, you would scarcely need a recommendation for a book in the middle of the series. No, if you had read O'Brian before you would have either decided not to read more or as so many have before you, would have read the series, devouring one book after another in the order they were intended to be read. The Wine-Dark Sea is a section of one of the greatest examples of nautical fiction ever written, don't deny yourself the joy of watching these characters grow and develop over the course of the opus.