Customer Reviews

The Atlas of Experience

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Filled with provocative quotes, intriguing demographic data, and regions like Mountains of Work, Chaos, and Elsewhere - The Atlas of Experience brings us into a fictional world that is very funny, while also being rich in depth and detail.

The book really does look and feel like an atlas - the maps are beautifully drawn, and the various landmarks have names that are appropriate and reveal considerable thought. For instance, in the region of Adversity, it is possible to stop in at Adrenaline while climbing the Peaks of Euphoria. Of course, you may wind up at the end of a road and find yourself in Exhaustion or Consequences. When you visit Knowledge, you'll find that the Forest of Curiosity is very close to Fantasy and Intuition.

I purchased the book as a gift for a friend who is a geography buff with a creative streak, but now I'm thinking about keeping it for myself. I've enjoyed thumbing through it and discovering mysterious locales like Secrets, Growth, Pleasure and Change. This book would be wonderful for someone who loves maps, travel, geography, or someone who has a rich imagination and who can appreciate Experience and Life being depicted in cartographic form.

This is a lovely book of twenty-one maps presented using the conventions of an atlas, but each map depicts a fictitious area and covers a theme: Secrets, Knowledge, Bad Habits, Home, Boredom, Health, Frozen Wastes, Stream of Ideas, The Isles of Forgetfulness, Mountains of Work, Growth, Chaos, The Void, Adversity, Haute Cuisine, Pleasure, Change, Mortality and Elsewhere.

Each map is preceded by one-and-a-half to two pages of commentary, including quotes, musings and anecdotes. These pages are worthwhile and add to the book's concept. After reading the pages, one can peruse a map and really contemplate its details with a pleasant and unique mix of pleasure and insight.

A loose composite map of all twenty-one areas is included.

Those of you who love maps for both their potential artistic value, and the way they can fire the imagination for far-off places, will love this book. Not only are the maps beautifully drawn and lovely to look at, they also make you laugh AND think. The book claims to map 'the human experience', and does a very good job of it. The atlas shows maps of places that don't exist, yet we each visit them every day in many ways.

Even people who don't like maps, or indeed who think the idea sounds stupid (and, as it sat on my desk, there were many) are quickly won over by the charming maps. People pick it up to have a quick flick through, and end up engrossed in the idea of trying to 'map' life, and how well the authors have done at what seems an impossible task.

This book is sure to provoke a smile in everyone who reads it. A simple idea, but wonderfully done. I'm betting you've never seen anything quite like it.

Believe me it really was an experience. Not since my early years have I been so totally immersed in a wonderland of fantasy.The selection of quotes and visions of others insures this reader more than just a travel of time and place, but a living reality of the not so important concerns of life. It should be a must for all of us, for a trip to no-where, yet loaded with adventure...

This book makes a wonderful gift for those who love maps or for those who are creative and love something imaginative and different. It's beautifully done and the content - the place names, the quotes, the ideas are all something good and interesting.

This book is just amazing!

The maps are funny and filled me with wonder!

!!!