{"id":5966,"date":"2015-02-17T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2015\/02\/unruly-places-off-the-map\/"},"modified":"2017-11-18T10:16:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T15:16:48","slug":"unruly-places-off-the-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2015\/02\/unruly-places-off-the-map\/","title":{"rendered":"Unruly Places (Off the Map)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Book Alastair Bonnett’s Unruly Places<\/a><\/em> (first published in the U.K. as Off the Map<\/a><\/em>) is a light, entertaining exploration of some of the world’s more unusual places. Bonnett, a social geography professor at Newcastle University<\/a>, has written 47 short essays about locations that, in the grand scheme of things, don’t make any sense: the exceptions, the asterisks, the ink blots (in at least one case literally) on the map.<\/p>\n

These range from the deeply frivolous to the profoundly injust: from bits and pieces of New York City transformed into environmental time capsules and art projects to places meaningful to the author; from rendition sites and pirate bases to Bedouin settlements in the Israeli Negev desert; from destroyed landscapes to Potemkin cities. The places often feel almost science-fictional; and in fact several of them evoked settings in existing science fiction works, like Christopher Priest<\/a>\u2019s Dream Archipelago and Maureen McHugh’s Nekropolis<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

All in all, a pleasant diversion for the geographically minded, though I did have one quibble: the book calling latitude and longitude “Google Earth coordinates,” as though degrees are as proprietary as<\/del> limited to<\/ins> the KML format.<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a> | iBooks: Canada<\/a>, U.K.<\/a>, U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alastair Bonnett’s Unruly Places (first published in the U.K. as Off the Map) is a light, entertaining exploration of some of the world’s more unusual places. Bonnett, a social geography professor at Newcastle University, has… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,470],"tags":[30,1077],"class_list":["post-5966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-travel","tag-books","tag-unusual-places"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1787859,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/10\/the-atlas-of-unusual-borders\/","url_meta":{"origin":5966,"position":0},"title":"The Atlas of Unusual Borders","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 October 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"Out today: Zoran Nikolic\u2019s Atlas of Unusual Borders (Collins), a book that \u201cpresents unusual borders, enclaves and exclaves, divided or non-existent cities and islands.\u201d Another compendium of geographical curiosities: a genre we\u2019ve seen before (see, for example, the Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas Obscura, the Atlas of Remote Islands, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geography"","block_context":{"text":"Geography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/atlas-unusual-borders-214x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3084,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/10\/atlas-of-improbable-places\/","url_meta":{"origin":5966,"position":1},"title":"Atlas of Improbable Places","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 October 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Travis Elborough's Atlas of Improbable Places: A Journey to the World's Most Unusual Corners\u00a0came out last month from Aurum Press. The maps are by Alan Horsfield. \"With beautiful maps and stunning photography illustrating each destination, Atlas of Improbable Places is a fascinating voyage to the world's most incredible destinations. As\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"atlas-improbable-places","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/atlas-improbable-places-1-216x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4735,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/08\/alastair-bonnetts-beyond-the-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":5966,"position":2},"title":"Alastair Bonnett’s Beyond the Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"31 August 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Alastair Bonnett's latest book,\u00a0Beyond the Map, is out today in the U.K. from Aurum Books.\u00a0An exploration of \"thirty-nine extraordinary places, each of which challenges us to re-imagine the world around us,\" including disputed enclaves, emerging islands and other idiosyncracies of geography,\u00a0Beyond the Map looks like a follow-up to his 2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geography"","block_context":{"text":"Geography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/beyond-the-map-188x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6031,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2015\/10\/atlas-of-cursed-places\/","url_meta":{"origin":5966,"position":3},"title":"Atlas of Cursed Places","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 October 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The first thing to keep in mind about Olivier Le Carrer's Atlas of Cursed Places (Black Dog & Leventhal, October 2015) is that it's not an atlas. Rather, it's a collection of brief essays about a series of unique places around the world. In that I suspect it's much like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5942,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/11\/gift-guide-map-books-of-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":5966,"position":4},"title":"Gift Guide: 10 Map Books of 2014","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 November 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year, at about this time of year, I assemble a gift guide listing some of the noteworthy books about maps that have been published over the previous year. This list is by no means comprehensive, but if you have a map-obsessed person in your life and you'd like to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gift Guides"","block_context":{"text":"Gift Guides","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gift-guides\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3588,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/12\/a-magnificently-rude-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":5966,"position":5},"title":"A Magnificently Rude Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 December 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The firm of\u00a0Strumpshaw, Tincleton & Giggleswick produces whimsical maps of\u00a0funny place names, including the Magnificently Rude Map of World Place Names, which shows where on the globe there are places with\u00a0names that mean Naughty Things in English. Because we are 12 years old. [Buzzfeed]","rel":"","context":"In "Toponyms"","block_context":{"text":"Toponyms","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/toponyms\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"stg-rude","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/stg-rude-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/stg-rude-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/stg-rude-1024x768.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/stg-rude-1024x768.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5975,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions\/5975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}