Foreign Language Fiction, World Literature, Contemporary, Suspense, Reference 

A nautical chart can be much more than an indispensable instrument to navigate from one place to another; it is an etching, a page from history, and sometimes even an adventure novel. Just published by Alfaguara, La carta esférica by Arturo Pérez-Reverte is the story of a sailor without a ship, exiled from the ocean, who meets a woman who returns to him the adventure of the sea. Never have the ocean and its history, the science of navigation, adventure and mystery, been combined in such an extraordinary manner as is done in this novel. Only Arturo Pérez-Reverte could have accomplished this. Blurb in Spanish: Un marino sin barco, desterrado del mar, conoce a una extraña mujer que posee, tal sin saberlo, respuestas a preguntas que ciertos hombres se hacen desde hace siglos. Nunca el mar y la Historia, la ciencia de la navegación, la aventura y el misterio, se habían combinado de modo tan extraodinario en una novela, como en La carta esférica. De Melville a Stevenson y Conrad, de Homero a Patrick O'Brian, toda la gran literatura escrita sobre el mar late en las páginas de esta historia fascinante, e inolvidable. - from Amzon