As a child, I was a huge fan of maps and atlases, and spent many a happy hour studying the world map pinned to my bedroom wall, dreaming of such exotic places as Death Valley, Novaya Zemlya and Loch Ness - monsters! I guess I was always going to want to read this history of maps and mapmakers, atlases and explorers, and, for a map enthusiast, this is a terrific read. Garfield starts with the extraordinary Facebook map developed by one of their interns in 2010, which visualises the geographic connections between Facebook friends into a haunting world map ( http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=469716398919 ), then travels back to the very earliest imaginings of what the world looked like, from Anaximander's 6th Century BC disc, through two and a half thousand years of increasing understanding of the world we live in. He discusses the challenges of globe-making, treasure maps, Ordnance Survey, Monopoly, Sat Nav and Google Maps, and much in between, in a chatty and humorous style, but always incredibly well-informed and comprehensively researched. The hardback is a lovely little package, and a great companion to his earlier Just My Type - A Book About Fonts.