This is my kind of book. It's literally an atlas of obscure stuff around the world, everything from and underwater ballroom on an English estate (constructed by a legendary fraudster), to the world's largest ship-breaking yard in Bangladesh, to examples of prominent "arbortecture" (using living trees, branches, roots, etc. to create other structures like bridges, homes, etc.), this book is nearly 500 pages of small "hey, did you know this exists?" excerpts of cool and obscure things found in the world.

One of the things I've noticed about spending the last year getting back into Dungeons & Dragons (and being the one to run adventures) is that it's constantly challenging me to come up with new content for the ongoing story, and it's really jumpstarted my renewed interest in reading stuff for the purpose of inspiration. An atlas full of weird, random stuff in the world definitely fits the bill; I noted down at least a hundred entries that stood out to me for one reason or another.

The book also served as a great reminder of just how diverse and unique and interesting our world is. The entries were divided up by continent and then by sub-region, so it's a fantastic reference for someone who might want to travel somewhere and see what unusual things they could see while they're in the area. I checked this book out from the library (so I unfortunately have to return it ), but I would definitely consider buying a copy of this book to have as a reference once the kids are a little older and we start to plan regular family vacations.

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Created Apr 27, 2025 at 2:37pm • Submit your own review...