Recommend me a book on age of sailing/exploration

It can be daunting at 20 novels and while based on true event, it is somewhat fictionalized. But nothing beats the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin novels.

Not exactly the Cook time frame, starting about 20 years after his death.

Set in the Napoleonic wars on Royal Navy warships they deal with the political,social, economic, and scientific world of the time. 

Very well done and very accurate.

you might need the book "A Sea of Words". It explains many of the terms used in the books.

Don't let the Movie "Master and Commander" sway your opinion of the series. The Movie, while excellent, draws on story elements from 5 of the books but is a stand alone story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%E2%80%93Maturin_series

I would recommend the Hornblower series by C S Forester.  This series got me started on ships.  It also got me interested in history.  Great writing and very true to history.  Also his book and movie The Gun is an excellent read

I'm presently reading "The Sea Warriors" by Richard Woodman and it's about Britain's frigate captains in the time of Nelson.  I'm also getting for Christmas a book titled "Six Frigates" by Ian Toll and it's about the founding of the U.S. Navy and the building of those initial frigates. There is also the classic "Two Years Before the Mast" by Richard Henry Dana.

TJS

I have a old book called Wooden Ships ahd Iron Men.  It covers ships from the old days of sail and it got me interested in sailing ships with its chapter on the Wasa recovery and how they were getting ready to restore it.  

I used to listen to a lot of audiobooks, and I had one called 'Pirate Hunters' that was about diving for treasure, and learning the histories of some of the well known pirates of the Americas.

in the fiction world, the 'Destroyermen' book series was interesting, following a pair of stricken American Destroyers as they run from the Japanese fleet, and cross through a sort of dimensional warp....while not of the sailing ships era, it was a really fun and fascinating adventure!

If you don't mind sci-fi elements, there is a fairly engaging (even if longwinded at times) series by David Weber called the Safehold series.  The gist is the survivors of the human race are hidden away on a distant planet in the future to avoid extermination by an alien race and the survivors are conditioned to not advance beyond the age of sail so that the aliens cannot locate them via any tech emissions.

The main protagonists are stand ins for the UK, being an island with a lot of naval experience, and they are leading a fight to advance their technology and most of the rest of the planet goes to war against them. 

The series has plenty of naval battles, and land battles eventually, and delves deeply into naval tech development from oar/wind power to eventual steam.

Then there's the 1632 series where a akien race creates art by picking a planet and transposing one small place with another but from different times.  In the first book they put a W.Va. mining town in Germany during the 30 years war leaving some very confused and freightened Germans in the U.S in 2004 and the mining town in a bit of shock as they recover and start to notice that the land doesn't line up anymore.  Eventually they discover they have enemies and have to form alliances as well as some form of governmentof their own.

They male a crude aircraft, modify their sport boats into makeshift warships, and so on

My first recommendations would be the Hornblower and Aubrey series.  Haven't made it all the way through either series yet, but really enjoy them both.

I'd also point out the Bolitho series by Alexander Kent.  It follows a RN Midshipman through the ranks to Admiral.  Starts out in the late 1760s and moves forward from there.  I've read the first three and really like them.  More about the characters than the sailing.

Doug