I thought the comparison between travel time from London in the modern-day compared to 1914 where days have been replaced by hours was fascinating as well as the size and scope of the Roman and Mongol Empires when compared to modern countries such as China.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. 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.”

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. Mike Higgins has more than 20 years experience editing and writing for news media organisations and publishers such as the Independent, Guardian, Telegraph, Lonely Planet, and Conde Nast. He lives in London. For graphic design enthusiasts, compulsive Wikipedia readers and those looking for the sort of gift they buy for someone else and wind up keeping for themselves, this book will change the way you see the world and your place in it. There is a lot more that I could say here, but I don’t want to take away from the pleasure of discovering it for yourself.

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Which nations have North Korean embassies? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild? The largest source of imports by country, shown by coloring the importing country to look like the country doing the importing’s flag In the foreword, Wright explained that he defined "popular" as "the most talked-about maps, the ones that seemed especially to strike a nerve with readers." Some of these maps went viral. Unsurprisingly, maps having to do with politics and national identity were some of the most popular over the last five years. Data was incomplete. Sometimes the maps just raised more questions about the research. One map, for example, compares homicide statistics among certain countries (randomly? I assume?). The data goes by number of deaths, but it doesn’t show the number as a percentage of the total population, so naturally, the more populous countries tend to have more deaths by any cause, because they have more people in the first place. This doesn’t help me understand anything about the countries’ safety or violence levels. Another map, comparing the U.S. and Europe, shows murder stats as percentages, which would have been more meaningful if two-thirds of it weren’t shades of blue. As before, I couldn’t tell them apart.

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. Now, using the “exact” proportion of sub-Saharan and Caribbean (in the case of Netherlands/UK) descended

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.