The romance and horror of the navigable world

I amuse myself by finding patterns in and between the books I tumble into, or stumble over, or on occasion drag myself through, grumbling. Lately, I have been able to gather many of them loosely with a theme I think of as the romance of the navigable world.

These books do not shatter or rebuild the world; instead, they share the pleasant and dangerous fiction that the rules of the world can be learned. It is a dream that unites aviation histories and Regency romances, crime fiction, and business development guides.