"there is no frigate like a book to take us lands away" means that. a. no ship can carry us to far-off places the way a book can. b. no book can carry us to far-off places the way a ship can. c. ships are not like books, and books and not like ships.

A no ship can carry us to far off places the way a book can 

In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that functions as a single verb. One component of the compound is a light verb or vector, which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, but provides only fine shades of meaning.