Map Addict Audiobook Libro.fm

My name is Mike and I am a map addict There its said
Maps not only show the world they help it turn On an average day we will consult some form of map approximately a dozen times often without even noticing checking the AZ the road atlas or the Sat Nav scanning the tube or bus map a quick Google online or hours wasted flying over a virtual Earth navigating a way around a shopping centre watching the weather forecast planning a walk or a trip catching up on the news booking a holiday or hotel Maps pepper logos advertisements illustrations books web pages and newspaper and magazine articles they are a cipher for every area of human existence At a stroke they convey precise information about topography layout history politics and power They are the unsung heroes of life Map Addict sings their song
There are some fine dry tomes out there about the history and development of cartography this is not one of them Map Addict mixes wry observation with hard fact and considerable research unearthing the offbeat the unusual and the downright pedantic in a celebration of all things maps In Map Addict we learn the location of what has officially been named by the OS as the most boring square kilometre in the land we visit the town fractured into dozens of little parcels of land split between two different countries and trek around many other weird borders of Britain and Europe we test the theories that the new city of Milton Keynes was built to a pagan alignment and that women cant read maps Combining history travel politics memoir and oblique observation in a highly readable and often very funny style Mike Parker confesses how his own impressive map collection was founded on a virulent teenage shoplifting habit ponders how a good leftie can be so gungho about British cartographic imperialism and wages a oneman war against the moronic blandishments of the Sat Nav age