This book is a masterpiece of language and a salute to the best of human nature in a realistic light. LOVED it. If anyone had told me, "You will now read a book about a sea captain's first command and pore over every word, and be brought to tears and awe by men's bravery," I would not have believed it.
This is perhaps the most satisfying book I read in 2007, and a real surprise. I read it because the main character in Phillip Roth's Exit Ghost kept quoting from it.