I recently finished reading Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen.
Nothing earthshaking, but for me it was a nice, accessible account of Magellan’s voyage. I was particularly glad to read a fuller account of Magellan’s death than I had known of before. In high school history classes, I’d sort of vaguely been told that he’d been killed by savages in the Phillipines. Turns out, he’d taken one tribe’s side over that of another and, furthermore was on the attack and trying his hand at converting the natives to Christianity. Not really advisable activities when you’re half way across the earth from your home base with 3 ships and 150 men or so. I had also been unaware of the bad blood between Magellan who was sailing for the Spanish and the Portuguese who, by virtue of the Pope’s Line of Demarcation, had dibs on the half of the world east of Brazil and west of the Phillipines. This made it difficult for the remainder of the expedition to get home once they left the Spice Islands.
If you liked it, I would suggest “A World Lit Only By Fire” by William Manchester…it covers Magellan and the state of the world at the time.