Tom Fort
No More Black Holes
On the Map: Why the world looks the way it does
By Simon Garfield
Profile Books 464pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
I did not know that a reliable and discreet way of stealing a map from a book is to suck on a thread of cotton and lay it along the bound edge until the enzymes have thinned the binding sufficiently for the page to be gently detached. The cruder, swifter way – with a blade – was favoured by the most prolific of all map thieves, Edward Forbes Smiley, who half-inched 97 of them from libraries in America and Britain. Another serial larcenist, Gilbert Bland, simply tore them out: ‘I just wanted them,’ was his explanation when he came up in court.
We can sympathise with the sentiment, if not with the methods. The passion for making and possessing maps is as old as our curiosity about the world we inhabit. Simon Garfield’s rich and revealing book is one more notable celebration of it.
In part the book is a straightforward retelling of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma