Compass is a hilarious story about an "adventurer" and what happens when he stops making things up and actually ends up on an adventure. It is nuts. The description says that it follows an ill-advised and poorly planned trip to the Arctic floe edge under the disorienting twenty-four-hour summer sun. When the ice breaks and his guide disappears, the narrator ends up alone and adrift in the hostile northern sea. He draws on his knowledge of historic expeditions to craft his own, inept, attempt at survival. In the beginning, he is kind of forced to go on this trip when a person he works with catches on to his scam. She knows he has not been to the place he was lecturing about and tells him he needs to go. She names a guide friend of hers that would help him on his journey. So whatever can go wrong, does go wrong. The main character is insufferable but also one of the funniest I have come across in some time. This book is a great adventure from the get-go and well worth a place on your shelf.