January Books of the Month

February 7, 2020 by Christina

Whenever I am in Montana, I tend to go dark across social media, focusing on spending time with family and being outdoors over writing blog posts, responding to emails, or posting to Instagram. (I deleted Facebook in August 2019 followed by Twitter the next month.) I planned to return to blogging once my vacation ended. Then, work threw my team and I through another re-organization, and I was too mentally scrambled to organize my bookish thoughts in coherent ones. I’m really […]

Categories: 2020 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Canada, Cartography, Chunkster, Classics, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Germany, Iceland, Icelandic, Indigenious Peoples, Japanese, Mexico, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, Persephone Books, ReadDiverse, Reread, South America, Translated, United Kingdom, United States • Tags: Andrew Cauthery, Anna Funder, Björg Árnadóttir, C.J. Box, Cathy O'Neil, Charles C. Mann, Guðmundur Andri Thorsson, Kaoru Mori, L. M. Montgomery, Monica Dickens, Naomi Klein, Ta-Nehisi Coates

On the Map by Simon Garfield

November 28, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Gotham, 2012. 464 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks”, Garfield’s book presents the rather fascinating history of cartography in a series of easy-to-digest, short chapters. Following a loose timeline, he focuses on interesting and important aspects of cartography – the library at Alexandria, John Snow’s epidemic map, the marvel that is the map of the London Underground, the controversy behind the Mercator projection – moving the reader from the very […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Cartography, Chunkster, Nonfiction • Tags: Simon Garfield

The Myth of Continents by Martin W. Lewis and Kären E. Wigen

July 14, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of California Press, 1997. 344 pgs. Borrowed. Subtitled “A Critique of Metageography”, Lewis and Wigen offer a critique of the way we divide the world – East versus West, First World versus Third World, the seven (or eight depending on who you ask) continents. Going beyond the argument that holding the “West” above the “East” or assigning countries into rank is racist and paternalistic, Lewis and Wigen argue that topographically the continents of the world do […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Africa, Asia, Cartography, Europe, Middle East, Nonfiction, Oceania, South America • Tags: Kären E. Wigen, Martin W. Lewis

The Map Thief by Michael Blanding

July 5, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Gotham, 2014. 300 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps”, Blanding’s book utilizes one map dealer to explore the complex world of rare-map dealing and collecting where maps went from practical instruments to quirky heirlooms to highly coveted objects that are traded – and stolen – like prized art. E. Forbes Smiley was once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer until he was caught cutting rare […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Cartography, New England, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Michael Blanding

How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier

January 19, 2013 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of Chicago Press, 1996. Originally published 1991. 207 pgs. Received from PaperBackSwap. Monmonier’s book is meant to teach readers how to evaluate maps critically through the promotion of a healthy skepticism about these easy-to-manipulate models of reality. To show how maps distort, Monmonier introduces basic principles of map-making (scale, projection, symbology) and gives examples of purposeful distortion for political and economic propaganda. Some of the antidotes are particularly funny. Map publishers have been known to deliberately […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Abandoned, Cartography, Nonfiction • Tags: Mark Monmonier

Fundamentals of Satellite Remote Sensing by Emilio Chuvieco and Alfredo Huete

November 20, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. CRC Press, 2009. 436 pgs. Purchased. This textbook is one of only two books I’ve read in over a month, and I can’t even really claim that because I read the first half of the book back in September. Thus is the nature of a reading slump, I suppose. Anyways, Chuvieco and Huete offer an extensive review of remote sensing principles — from physical principles to data acquisition systems and on to visual and digital interpretation techniques. […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Cartography, Nonfiction, Textbook • Tags: Alfredo Huete, Emilio Chuvieco

Drawing the Line by Mark Monmonier

August 14, 2012 by Christina

Subtitled “Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy”, Monmonier’s book attempts to explain how people make the erroneous assumption that maps are inherently truthful. Approached with none of he skepticism people bring to written information, maps are rarely recognized as the ideological symbols and propaganda they are. Map viewers should question the very basis of a map: Do you accept the maker’s view of the world, their explanation for a geographic patter, or their brand of cartographic presentation, rather than that of […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Cartography, Honors Project, Nonfiction • Tags: Mark Monmonier

From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow by Mark Monmonier

August 9, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. University of Chicago Press, 2006. 215 pgs. Source: Library. Subtitled “How Maps Name, Claim, and Infame”, the title of Monmonier’s book is clearly meant to grab attention and make people stop in the middle of the bookstore. It certainly succeeded; I couldn’t put the book back on the library shelf after it caught my eye. The book is not nearly as salacious as the title might make you believe. Instead, Monmonier takes readers into the world of toponymy […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Cartography, Honors Project, Middle East, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Mark Monmonier