OK…it’s a long shot, but I got a book recommendation from an aquaintance recently and for reasons I won’t go into it’s kind of important that I find out what the title is.I forget the author, and I’ve been unable to reach my friend for the info.
Here’s what I have to go on:
It’s a semi-historical fictional novel about a group of traders/sailors/explorers who run into hijinx and adventures in the course of their explorations.
Not much to go on, I know. However, I do remember the dustjacket illustration depicted most of the globe with a tall ship sailing on the lower half of it, ie. upside down.
Does anyone have a clue? I think it’s a fairly recent novel, if that’s any help. Many thanks!
Very bad guess (but the only well known thing about sailors I know with a globe thing on the cover)-- The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco?
One of the Horatio Hornblower series? I forget the author but a search engine should help.
Captain Blood?
One of the O’Brien series involving Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin?
Mutiny on the Bounty?
If it is relatively new and hardback, I would vote for one of the O’Brian series. There are about twelve in the series and all have what you discribe on the cover. And they have been selling well.
TV
I just realized I didn’t make it clear. Patrick O’Brian is the author. The entire series should be available in any good bookstore.
some of the titles include:
Mauritius Command, The Fortune of War, The Yellow Admiral, Blue at the Mizzen, The Ionian Mission, Treason’s Harbour, Desolation Island and The Far Side of the World.
TV
Check the Science Fiction shelves at your bookstore for Star Trek novels. 
Otherwise I would go with TVTime’s suggestion of Patrick O’Brian’s books.
ummmmm, I don’t think O’Brian or Forrester match the idea of a “bunch of explorers” having adventures.
Here is a picture of Eco’s book, although it does not match what you described:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0140259198.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif
Voyage of the Bassett by, um, Christenson (maybe)?
Was it part of a series?
The title Dr. Fidelius mentioned seems to be one of several according to Amazon - Voyage of the Basset - 5 hits
Anything to do with Drake or Magellan? Thems could be said to be explorer with hijinks. Hijinx only applied to Magellan.
Definitely not Umberto Eco’s “Island of the Day Before” (I know because I’ve read it.)
I’m rather positive that none of the O’Brian books has an upside-down ship on the cover.
Likewise, I’d be surprised if the Hornblower or any other “classic” had a cover like that. Sounds like a modern illustrative concept to me. Of course, the OP did state that it was most likely a recent book.
Glad to be of help.
-ellis
All the O’brian and Hornblower books I’ve ever seen have rather repetitive oil paintings galleons blowing eachother up. Nothing like the cover described.
Editorial Reviews
"Christopher Columbus was looking for a passage to India when he ran full-tilt boogie into the Americas. One of the narrators of Matthew Kneale’s ambitious historical novel English Passengers has more modest aspirations: Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley wants only to smuggle a little tobacco, brandy, and French pornography from the Isle of Mann to a secluded beach in England. Yet somehow in the process, he and his crew end up weighing anchor for Australia. Worse, they’re forced to carry three temperamental Englishmen bound for Tasmania on a mission to discover the exact location of the Garden of Eden. The year is 1857, and the study of geology is beginning to make serious inroads into areas of religious doctrine. When the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson runs across a scientific treatise that puts the age of Silurian limestone somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand years, he is scandalized: “This was despite the fact that the Bible tells, and with great clarity, that the earth was created a mere six thousand years ago.” His many attempts to prove the Bible’s accuracy lead, eventually, to a scientific expedition comprising himself, Timothy Renshaw, a dilettante botanist, and Dr. Thomas Potter.
Now jump back 30 years, to 1828, when a revolution of sorts is stirring on the island of Tasmania. Over the years, white settlers have been encroaching on aboriginal land and relations have deteriorated into violence. At the heart of the action is Peevay, a young half-breed abandoned by his aborigine mother, who had been kidnapped and raped by a white escaped convict. Now his vengeful mother is leading a war against the whites, and Peevay, desperate to win her love, has joined her. Chapters from the past narrated by Peevay and augmented by letters and dispatches from white settlers alternate with the sections told by Kewley, Wilson, Renshaw, and Potter. Eventually, of course, the two time lines intersect with momentous results. "
Yeah, I think Wilbo’s got it. Have a look at the cover.
