I, too, favor the Patrick O'Brian series – far better writing but no one is trying to film that, and I seriously doubt if they could do O'Brian's writing justice. The new Hornblower series is considerably superior to the Gregory Peck 1950's film. There's also a coffee table book out now on how the film production company put together the ships (Russian shipyards), their various scale models, how they operate them, and other slight of hand stuff.

As for other good reads, you might try James Nelson's novels (former 2nd officer on the HMS Rose), and then there's Alexander Kent's 20 or so novels (the lesser of several other weevils as Dr. Maturin might remark) although I find his work rather repetitious and somewhat thin fare. Or you could just stay tuned to the Cranky Yankee thread!