Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett is essentially a sociological and philosophical study of what 'place' really means to each of us. The author explores 47 different locales around the globe (usually with GPS coordinates included) and divides them by type (floating cities, underground bunkers, and places without borders to name a few). He examines the dichotomy in wanting a place which is set in stone and also desiring to be itinerant travelers like our ancestors. Until I read this I had never really thought about the significance that we as humans associate with place. The historical and geographical facts Bonnett detailed were especially fascinating (examples include: pumice rafts, Sealand (they have their own passports!), and the enclaves of Belgium). The pacing was just right and the material kept me engaged throughout (which by this point in the year is a challenge).  I really like to learn about places that are far removed from the everyday and Bonnett delivered on that in spades. For those with wanderlust in their heart or a desire to learn about phenomenally odd and/or out of the way locales then this is a great little book. I bet it would make an excellent travel companion on any vacation! 10/10

What's Up Next: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

What I'm Currently Reading: Star Trek: Destiny #3: Lost Souls by David Mack (yes, I'm still reading this)

TITLE:  Geography for Dummies

AUTHOR:  Charles Heatwole

DATE PUBLISHED:  2002

FORMAT:  Paperback

ISBN-13:  9780764516221

_____________________________________

Geography for Dummies provides a brief overview of the geography you should have learned in middle-school.  Topics covered in the book include Mapwork; Physical Geography  (e.g. volcanoes, earthquakes, climate, etc); Population Geography (movement and distribution of people); and Economic Geography (resources, economic activities, urban geography, environmental issues, etc).  The book also provides many diagrams and lists of organizations for geographic information (useless unless you live in the USA), geographical occupations, geographical websites, and a chapter on oddball topics like the Bermuda Triangle or how "Democratic Republics" are usually anything but democratic.

This book provides a basic, superficial outline of the listed topics, using simple words, a chatty writing style and many examples (most of them from the USA) - I suppose this is what one should expect from a book subtitled "for Dummies".  Personally I found the chattiness rather long-winded and the simplistic explanations annoying (I wanted more information!).

In short, an informative, albeit basic, book if you know nothing about geography, rather superficial if you want something more detailed.

Atlas Obscura is a distillation of the entries on the atlasobscura.com website; it's two creators tried to pick the best entries for most of the world and bound them in a beautiful book full of color photographs and illustrations.

I was unaware of the website when I got this book, and I think that probably made it even better: almost all of the entries were new to me and almost all of them were fascinating, or macabre, or so weird they were worth reading about (a breakout section included examples of doctors on Antartica forced to operate on themselves; a man in Vermont that makes art out of spider webs; the breakout map of Lake Monsters of the USA).

Each of the entries are only a few paragraphs or less, making it easy to pick up and put down at your leisure. If you like traveling, or armchair traveling, and you enjoy reading about the weird and the wonderful, definitely check this book out.  

Everybody who isn't me knows an atlas is a reference, not something to be read cover-to-cover.  Me?  I had to read it cover to cover, which made this gorgeous, well-written, informative book feel more like a chore than it should have.  

This is an atlas of all the places on the maps throughout history that never existed.  Atlantis will be the first example that comes to many minds, but there are so many more.  You wouldn't think maps would be enduring evidence of the human ability to spin a yarn but our ability to make stuff up is timeless.

Each entry gets at least a spread and the old maps included (in color where applicable) are gorgeous; almost worth the price of the book on their own.  

If you love maps, or geography, this book is beautiful and worth a look; even though I'm glad to finally finish it, it's something I'll treasure and look at again and again.