The Books canon

Sourced and shelved.

Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
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Magellan

Conqueror of the Seas
1938 · 352 pages

Five ships left Seville in 1519 and one came home three years later with eighteen men aboard. Zweig tells the circumnavigation as the story of an obstinate will set against an unmapped ocean.

★ 4.9

The Journals

1768 · 646 pages

Cook charts New Zealand and eastern Australia in his own hand, and sails until no southern continent is left to find. The log calls the Aborigines happier than Europeans, then claims their coast.

★ 5.8