Brilliant Maps: An Atlas for Curious Minds

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This simple book serves the schoolroom for all ages, the coffee table of any household, the shelf in any library, and a font of wonderfulness for any trivia gamer.” — New York Journal of Books

He has separated the 100 maps in this books into eleven sections. The first three, People and Politics, Religion and Politics and power are very similar in scope. My favourite maps from these sections are Countries that have a smaller population than Tokyo and countries with large economies than California. Which countries have had a female leader in the last 50 years and how long was a female the head of the government That’s right, Brilliant Maps is now a book. You’ll find the most popular maps I’ve published over the last few years along with many new ones; all completely re-imagined by Infographic.ly. Sources for the data: Sources and latest available data: UK Census (2011), destatis.de (2019), Eurostat (2019), Russian Registrar (2019), dmsu.gov.ua (2019), scb.se (2019), Irish Census (2016), demo.istat.it (2019), opendata.cbs.nl (2019), ssb.no (2019), statbank.dk (2020), stat.fi (2019), migracje.gov.pl (2018) and ine.es (2019). Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy of Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright. I loved this book! Ian compiled 100 different maps of the world that each showed the world in a different way. The book is divided into nine categories including: People and Populations, Friends and Enemies, Geography, and Nature. The maps were all very colorful and showed off some unique ideas.There's just so much data that can be presented on a map. My husband and I had Valentine's Day dinner at home, and is there any greater testament to the patience he has for me than the fact that he let me pull out this book when we finished eating and explain my very favorite maps to him? Quirkiness. It has serious elements such as casualties from wars, but it also has some unabashedly bizarre entries, such as the one titled “Chile is a ridiculously long country.” Grouped into broad categories (culture and customs, history, nature, etc.), these maps cover topics serious and less so . . . Whether browsing or looking for report inspiration, this visual, trivia-filled offering will get teens thinking outside the box.”— Booklist Our diversity across the planet has lead to a lot of different culture and customs, and know who drives on the wrong side of the road and writes the date wrong is useful if unimportant information. Enjoyment of this book is going to vary from reader to reader, but North American Maps for Curious Minds is overall intriguing and informative--and very easy to get lost in. Despite not totally loving it, I still feel enthusiastic in recommending this, and I look forward to possibly more books from brilliantmaps.com in the future.

There were a few poor colour choices, where there wasn't enough contrast to easily recognise the difference, but for the most part these were well presented. There was enough good information interspersed with the quirky to keep me interested.

The largest source of imports by country, shown by coloring the importing country to look like the country doing the importing’s flag Now, using the “exact” proportion of sub-Saharan and Caribbean (in the case of Netherlands/UK) descended I thought the comparison between travel time from London in the modern-day compared to 1914 where days have been replaced by hours was fascinating as well as the size and scope of the Roman and Mongol Empires when compared to modern countries such as China. It also shows in stark detail just what we have lost in our relentless expansion, especially with the map showing the current verses the old distribution of lions. A few others I liked were “City names, then and now” “Number of second homes per unhoused person” “Indigenous homelands in 1491” “Median age by state” “Quality of life, happiness, and well-being in North America” “COVID-19 anxiety and depression” “Endangered or threatened species that live entirely within one state”Overall, I liked this book but didn’t love it. This is partly due to personal preference, but objectively speaking, some of the maps just don’t have enough factual variation for the map format to be an ideal choice. “Who pays the most for their military?” is in three colors and can be viewed in seconds. “How fast recreational marathon runners finish a marathon by state” differs by just a few seconds for the vast majority of states. “The highest-paid public employee by state” is dominated by blue (for college-head football coach). And some, such as a map showing every show The Beatles played in America, seem arbitrary and not only don’t require the map format but would be better served as simple lists. Great information but I got more and more frustrated as I went along. Although there are few words other than the legend and title, I nearly marked this a could-not-finish—it was that aggravating.