Review of Atlas of the Unexpected

In a compendium like the Atlas of the Unexpected, it is often helpful to see what the author is thinking.  The following are excerpts from the introduction. “..odd and enchanting, ancient and modern…Unimaginable in some instances, and all but uninhabitable in others…remind us of the enduring strangeness of our planet.” These words pretty much sum up the scope of the book—a little about a lot!  The chapter titles range from the Accidental Discoveries, Strange Roots, Haphazard Destinations, Cavernous Locations, and Serendipitous Spaces.  Each of them seems to pull the reader in deeper. The sites described are from all over.  Some, the intrepid traveler might have already visited like Pompeii in Italy or the Galapagos Islands. Others like the Lascaux Caves or the Dead Sea Scrolls sites might be places we want to go.  Other sites, I’d never heard of but now would like to visit and some are easy to get to being in the United States like the Fly Geyser in Nevada or Glass Beach in California or Gibsonton in Florida where some of the human oddities lived.

Each place has its own story presented in a concise fashion taking only a few pages and often including a map showing exactly how to best find the site. In less than 200 pages, a staggering 45 places are described and shown. There is also a good bibliography for further study and reading. A comprehensive index of names and places allows finding any of the locations in the book easy.

If you were like me, one of the first things I did was turn to the map showing all of them to see how many were close by…there are nine in the United States!!   Each site shares some interesting facts like the one on Grand Tsingy on Madagascar where the lemur abounds and it is their only known natural habitat.  But not just the lemur is native, there are over 200,000 different species, making it the most biologically diverse island on Earth.  Bet you didn’t know that before!!

This is one of those fun books to have and explore from time to time.  It is probably not a book that one just picks up for a pleasure read.  It is more of a reference work, useful in planning a trip to off-the-beat places or just doing research on oddities on our planet.