Book: The King’s Cartographer

The King’s Cartographer
Jair Alcalay
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The world just beckons to be discovered…

Lisbon, 1481. On the backdrop of Catholicism's rise and the subsequent persecution of Europe's Jews, the Ben Avraham family have defied the odds and risen to fame as the King of Portugal’s most valued cartographers.

An avid explorer and passionate businessman himself, Isaac Ben Avraham dreams of the many discoveries still to be made across the vast expanses of the yet unknown world.

Motivated by his keen curiosity and the rising need to provide safety for his family, and supported by the King himself, Isaac carefully sets in motion the exploratory delegations that will ultimately lead to the greatest discoveries the world has ever seen.

The history of 15th century exploration comes to life in a riveting and exciting tale of maritime adventures and new-world discoveries to capture your heart and imagination.

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This took me quite a while to read… it was a difficult read.
With the book name, “the king’s cartographer”, I thought it would be a fiction book. In the beginning few chapters, I was thinking maybe the author was “setting the scene” so it was all narration. With high hopes that it will soon change to have some sort of conversation, it did not happen.

Then when I realized this really was more of a history book, I was too far in and decided to just trudge on and finish the book. I realized this was a history book when it was talking about Christopher Columbus (which the original name Cristobal Colon was used, but I don’t recall the book ever mentioning that, I only realized that when Colon = Columbus reached the americas, while a later navigator John Cabot, the author mentions the original Italian name and the English names).

Different navigators/seafarers were mentioned and focused on, so… which King’s Cartographer was this really about? *Confused*

Also, as I am living in one of the then-Portuguese colonies I was a bit miffed there was no mention of that.

And then by the end of the book the landing of the moon or space travel was mentioned……………………. How is that related to cartography???? But anyway…

I’m glad I’ve finally finished the book… I can read another book.